


Vengeful Malice Aforethought

by ID_Locke



Category: Original Work
Genre: 3rd arm, Divine Worship World, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Magic, Murder, Oral Sex, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ID_Locke/pseuds/ID_Locke
Summary: Kheima needs vengeance on the Pepsinae Queen for trying to kill him and his Dad moments after he was born. She viewed him as an abomination and a failed Sojar because of his 3rd arm, not knowing that she'd had not one but two Chimeric Demons in her grasp. There is a small hiccup in Kheima's plan and with no other viable option, Kheima prays for aid to the God of Vengeance & Justice, Ravir. Ravir agrees to help for a price but warns Kheima that vengeance always comes with a personal price beyond what he demands as a god. Kheima believes any price is acceptable as long as the Queen dies by his hands. The price he needs to pay is nothing he could've ever dreamed of.
Relationships: God/Demon
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much everything in my Divine Worship World is connected in some way. They are all stand-alones and can be enjoyed without reading other works in this world. For those keeping track, Ravir and Kheima's story is set roughly 300 years after the events of Freedom Run (Kai-Wen & Belial's story). I am working on the story of how Kheima came into being, Triptych Heart, and there are cameo mentions of characters from other stories. This story is complete but I wouldn't rule out writing another one-shot of them getting the full happy eternity after. And yes, I do plan on writing a story for Kulfi/Akusuo.

** Vengeful Malice Aforethought **

**Chapter 1**

Blood dripped from the claws of my ephemeral hand. I shook it in annoyance sending droplets flying in an arc. It wasn’t mine so it wasn’t something to be concerned about. The blood trickling down my face and over my ribs was. I wasn’t badly wounded. Yet. But I needed a little uninterrupted rest to allow my body to regenerate. Otherwise I’d keep tearing open the delicate healing flesh and my body would burn through energy trying to constantly fix itself.

I huddled in a tiny alcove under some stairs and listened to the distant pounding of feet and shouting as the Sojar looked for the intruder that was viciously ploughing through their ranks. I’d actually gotten further than I thought I would before the alarm was sounded and I was proud of myself for that. Oleander was right. Having good information was really better than being armed to the teeth, going balls out and hoping for the best. Of course, it was just good planning to be armed to the teeth in addition to having excellent information.

My personal mission wasn’t anywhere near done and now that I’d started it there wasn’t any going back. If I abandoned it now I’d likely never get the chance again to do what needed to be done. The holes in the security I’d used to enter the palace would be forever plugged and it hadn’t been easy to get in as it was. I’d planned and trained hard for years to do this. I’d make it happen through sheer force of will if I had to. If I had to retreat, I’d do it with a very heavy heart and only after all options had been tried because there was no way I intended to die trying to complete my mission.

I’d set a lofty goal but as long as I was methodical and careful about it, I believed I could do it. I was very good. Not nearly as good as Oleander, but he’d been carrying out espionage and assassinations for the Immortal Army for over one hundred and fifty years before I was even born. He had so much more experience than me it was almost laughable. But when I’d told him what I intended to do and laid out my plan he’d said it sounded doable. Dangerous as fuck, but doable.

Oleander had given me a good luck charm from his husband, Arjan, the God of Fortune. The charm had already saved my life by deflecting a blow that would’ve skewered me through the heart. I could heal and regenerate almost any wound but not even demon healing could fix a destroyed heart or getting my head lopped off. Those were actually the only absolutely certain ways to kill a demon.

I didn’t know how effective the charm was going to be now or if it would still work. About a third of it still hung from the cord around my neck, the remainder of it shorn off by the sword that almost pierced my heart. The hacked off part of the charm was now lost somewhere between the site of that fight and my current hiding position. Considering that the charm was something actually made by the God of Fortune, there was a better than average chance that the piece I had would still work in some way. I’d take whatever luck I could get.

The wound near my heart and the gash on my temple finally healed over as I rested. I listened carefully and heard nothing near me. Time to move. Surprise was still on my side. The Sojar I was methodically taking out had no idea who or what was hunting them down one by one. I left none alive to tell the tale of who or what was cutting them down. They only saw the results of my work. The Sojar were the Pepsinae Queen’s personal guards and while I didn’t hold any grudges against them specifically, in order to kill the Queen I needed to clear a path to her and that meant killing all the Sojar. Not just the ones in my way. All of them.

The Sojar were literally bred to be loyal to the death and utterly obedient to the Queen. They were her children but it went deeper than just a maternal connection. There was a whole process involved that made the Sojar what they were and their undying, fanatical loyalty and obedience to the Queen that spawned them. Should the current Queen die, the first thing the new Queen did was kill all the old Queen’s Sojar as they’d never be loyal and obedient to anyone but the Queen who spawned them. Apparently the old Sojar would likely even try to kill the new Queen.

The current Queen forced the men in her carrel, a harem, to carry the Sojar and she made sure to do it in a way that was exceedingly painful for the men on several levels because she was a sadistic bitch that enjoyed seeing them suffer. The men could only bear a Sojar a few times before their body was too weak to have another, the Sojar babies sucking up far more energy and resources from the men forced to carry them than a normal baby would. The men were killed, frequently by the Queen herself, when they were no longer able to carry Sojar babies. A man only left the carrel when he was dead.

Being one of the men in her carrel wasn’t a choice a man made either. If the man was a Pepsinae, the Queen simply took him, put him in her carrel and that was the end of that. If the man wasn’t Pepsinae, the Queen cajoled, tricked or kidnapped the man into her carrel. Once there, he was as trapped as any Pepsinae man.

Technically speaking, I was a failed Sojar, my Dad, Qayin, having been kidnapped into the carrel from the inn he’d stopped at one evening. The only reason both of us lived was that the Queen hadn’t known that Dad was a rare, specific type of demon. When I’d been born with a third-arm and that arm looking very different from my other two, she’d declared me an abomination and slit my throat in front of Dad before slitting his as well. We’d been dumped in a garbage heap to rot instead of given the dignity of a burial as the men of the carrel were because she’d been so furious at Dad for birthing an abomination.

It wasn’t until hours after we’d been dumped in the refuse heap like worthless garbage that the Queen learned that she’d had a Chimeric Demon in her carrel and that he’d birthed a Chimeric Demon since we always bred true no matter the species we bred with. She’d sent the Sojar out to retrieve us but we’d been gone by that point. The Sojar had relentlessly pursued us for nearly a week before Dad used the last of his energy to take us to the realm of Lord Rhas-Khan, God of the Abyss, to escape the Sojar.

Dad hadn’t been sure it would work as he’d never taken anyone with him when he travelled to other realms but we’d been out of options by that point. There was also the fact that the Abyss was incredibly dangerous. He’d been sure though that if he could get there, he could call to Malachite, Rhas-Khan’s son and a god in his own right, and that he would see us safe and protect us. Dad had been very, very right about that.

Chimeric Demons as a whole were rare and highly prized. Because of typical demon regeneration, pieces of us could be cut off and sold for staggering amounts of money to the less-than-honest for use as ingredients in potions and charms. Those charms didn’t really work and the potions were far, far less effective than they were sold as being. It didn’t stop people from buying and using the charms and potions though. Trade in Chimeric Demon parts was highly lucrative if you could get your hands on one of us, which was why we always instinctively hid our true nature from all but the most trusted people.

Each Chimeric Demon also had a particular gift or talent that was unique to them, too, making us even more valuable as something to sell to the desperate. Dad had the ability to enter any realm or plane he wanted as easy as someone walked through a door. He actually said he opened a door in his mind when he wanted to go to another realm. That was how he met Baba, Malachite, and Tatay, Ji-Sun, and married to both of them.

My gift was my ephemeral hand. I could make my third hand and arm insubstantial at-will and pass it through anything. If I touched someone’s brain, I could read their memories depending on how deep I pushed my fingers into their head and take complete control of their body like a puppet. If I solidified my hand while it was inside someone, the results were not pretty for that individual and judging by their screaming, hideously painful and terrifying before they died in a rather messy and gruesome way.

I’d already killed about a third of the Sojar using my ephemeral hand. It was my go-to weapon when carrying out assassination missions. I could never be disarmed of it and even if something horrible happened and it was cut off me, eventually it would grow back. It would hurt like fuck and take weeks but it wouldn’t ever be truly gone.

I skulked out from the small space under the stairs and kept moving towards the Queen’s chambers. It was heavily guarded by the strongest of the Sojar even when there wasn’t an emergency situation going on in the palace. There would probably be more than the usual two Sojar guarding the main door and hallway by now. I didn’t doubt for a second that there were going to be even more Sojar in her chambers, too, ready to defend the Queen to their death.

Frontal assault of the Queen’s chambers wasn’t a smart move considering that I was the only person on this mission. The guards at the door could overwhelm me just with numbers alone. I was good but I wasn’t invincible or immortal. My plan involved getting in through the carrel and having surprise on my side to do what I needed to do.

While I could Gate like any demon, the Queen had her palace warded to prevent incursions like that. The exception to that was the room used to receive supplies for the running of the palace. It was easier to allow the room to be entered magically with massive loads of goods than to haul the goods to the palace with dozens upon dozens of carts and wagons. The room was only open to Gating for a few hours each day and there were guards stationed at the door that led from the room to the rest of the palace.

Getting in to the palace through the Gating room had been ridiculously easy. I knew my strengths and played to them. Little attention was paid to a skinny boy dressed in slave clothes. Even less attention was paid to me as I staggered from the supply depot room with a bag of potatoes almost as big as I was. If you looked like you were supposed to be there and acted like you were supposed to be there, people assumed you had every right to be there and questioned nothing. Nobody paid any attention to slaves either which helped immensely.

My ephemeral hand and arm were insubstantial for the disguise I used. I’d yet to find someone who could detect it when it was insubstantial unless they blew a stupidly high level spell, were Mage-born or were a god. The guards at the door of the supply depot room were regular Pepsinae and probably the highest level of magic they had available, if they even had any, wouldn’t even come close to what was required to detect my ephemeral hand.

From what Dad told me about his brief time in the carrel, the men of the carrel weren’t happy about being there and all of them wanted to leave. That information was decades old but I’d done my own information gathering about the men of the carrel for nearly a year and from the little additional information I’d been able to glean, the same mindset was still active in the men of the carrel. I needed to make a bit of a leap of faith that the men of the carrel wouldn’t sound the alarm when I showed up because I’d be offering them a chance at freedom by killing the Queen.

I made it as far as the door to the carrel only to run smack into a barrier. I bounced off an invisible wall and landed on my ass. I scowled, got up and pressed against the barrier. It was as hard as stone and didn’t so-much-as flicker. I could easily push my ephemeral hand through it to touch the door, but I could only make that hand and arm insubstantial, not my entire body. This mission would’ve been so much easier if I’d been able to do that.

Getting through the door should’ve been fairly easy. Or at least I’d gambled that it would be. It was spelled to allow only the Queen and her Sojar free passage. I hadn’t gone through the process to become a Sojar but I was technically one by birth so I’d hoped I would’ve been able to pass through the door. That had been a fifty/fifty chance I was taking since I was the only living “failed” Sojar that I knew about. Failed Sojar were immediately killed by the Queen as they were of no use to her.

I wasn’t sure if the barrier I now faced was the regular spell to keep out everyone and keep the men in or if it was part of some emergency procedure to secure the Queen’s quarters or if it would only allow full Sojar to pass through. Whatever the case, it was a problem I needed to work around somehow.

Testing the barrier told me that it was far above my skills to dismiss or break it. Granpa Eilam could probably do it in his sleep with barely a twitch of his fingers but he was Mage-born, a Fatebender, god-marked and had been studying high level magic for over five hundred years. There was also no way in any of the realms that I was going to call to him to help me on this even if I was pretty sure he would help me once I told him what I was doing. He’d know why I was doing it without my needing to explain further. I was also absolutely sure that he could get into the palace easily enough despite it being warded against intrusions. Mage-born were just that powerful magically.

I was an adult and fully capable of making my own decisions, but he’d chew me out six ways from Sunday for doing something potentially life ending without any back up, tell Granpa Rhas-Khan on me and then tell my parents what I’d done. Having your parents mad at you regardless of your age was horrible. Having two of those same parents actual gods and the third parent one god-marked by those gods was a level of bad I didn’t even want to touch. Throw in another god and his god-marked Fatebender husband for grandparents, too, and I doubted that I’d ever be let out of the house by myself ever again.

Kyrieleison, my little brother, would stand beside me because he was awesome like that. He was a Chimeric Demon like me despite both Baba and Tatay being gods and his biological fathers. He could probably break the barrier because he was amazingly gifted when it came to magic but I’d never ask him to do something so dangerous. There was also no way for him to come to where I was because Gating into the palace wasn’t a thing except for that one room and the time it was open for Gating had now closed. Our parents would kill both of us, too, if I pulled something like that and he went along with it. Kyrieleison knew what I was doing but I’d sworn him to secrecy and I knew absolutely nothing would get him to break his vow.

I needed help to complete this mission but my options were severely limited. Abandoning my quest unless faced with imminent death wasn’t possible to me. It would eat away at my insides to leave now knowing that I’d never get another chance at doing this. Especially when I was so close. I could easily contact four gods, one of them an Elder God, for help and I knew they’d answer right away. But they were also family and I’d be neck-deep in shit if I reached out to any of them right now. Calling any of them would be an absolute last resort when I’d exhausted all other options.

I could try to appeal to Lord Mkhai since I was a soldier of the Immortal Army and he was my ultimate superior as the Supreme Commander, but this mission was a personal one and I was pretty sure he’d say no as it didn’t have anything to do with the Immortal Army. I was too scared of his husband, Kathiel, a powerful god-marked necromancer, to ask for his help to break the barrier and I barely knew the man. Oleander, my immediate commander, already told me that he couldn’t help me more than he had and I knew Lord Arjan, his husband, only slightly better than Kathiel. I certainly didn’t know him well enough to ask him to personally help me.

I chewed on my bottom lip as I thought about what to do.

A slow smile stretched across my lips when I thought of the perfect solution to my problem. There were a multitude of gods in the universes and one of them, Lord Ravir, was the God of Vengeance and Justice. This was the most perfect situation in the history of eternity to pray to him to ask for his help. He’d want something in return because I wasn’t a worshiper of his and he owed me nothing. That was fine. I’d pay almost any price to complete this personal crusade.

I’d wanted to do this on my own in a sort of giant fuck you to the Queen for calling me a worthless abomination and trying to kill me when I was literally minutes old as well as trying to kill Dad. I fully intended to tell her who I was before I killed her so she’d know what a colossal failure she was and how it was the abomination that took her down. I got very inappropriately hard when I thought about that.

Praying in the middle of the hallway was just asking to get fucked hard and fatally so I moved back the way I’d come and slipped into a room next to the carrel. I stopped and stared in surprise at an incredibly well decked out sexual dungeon. Then again, the carrel was literally steps away and I knew the Queen enjoyed abusing and torturing the men of the carrel so it sort of made sense such a place was here.

There were a lot of things that were obviously used to hold someone down in place which didn’t surprise me much given that the men didn’t want whatever the Queen did to them. Whips and straps hung on one wall. Another wall had chains and cuffs fastened to it. There was a huge glass-fronted cabinet filled with dildoes of all sizes and shapes along with some things that I couldn’t even guess at the function of which was a bit surprising. I was very familiar with all manner of sex toys because Tatay, Ji-Sun, was the God of Carnal Desire, Love and Fertility. If it involved something sexual, he was the one to ask because that was his wheelhouse and he was the final authority on all things sexual.

Granted, I’d never had full-on sex with anyone yet but I thought my sexual education was way better than the average person. Those who approached me for sex always asked if what they’d heard about my knowing the God of Carnal Desire and having him teach me sexual things was true. They always retracted the offer of sex with blinding speed when I said it was and that Tatay was my father as well as Baba, who was the God of Stone & Crystals and Dad, who was a demon. Having two gods as parents and their presumed wrath at me getting fucked was apparently a mood-killer.

I did my best to ignore the stuff in the room despite how some things intrigued me. I made a mental note to ask Tatay about them later. I settled to my knees, clasped my hands and bowed my head. I really, really hoped that Lord Ravir would answer my prayer for vengeance. If he didn’t, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I knew a frontal assault on the Queen’s chambers would fail. Best case scenario had her capture me to add to her carrel. I didn’t doubt for a second that my parents would come get me when I called and do a lot of godly smiting but I needed to be awake to call them. A lot of unpleasantness could happen to someone while they were unconscious.

I could heal and regenerate from grievous bodily harm like losing a limb or even multiple limbs but it would be massively unpleasant, hurt like fuck and I’d rather not go through that. I’d been sloppy once while training and had three fingers accidentally chopped off. The initial injury had been painful but a short-lived pain. The regeneration had been a very long week of low, grinding pain that made it nearly impossible to concentrate on anything and I never wanted to go through that again if it could be helped.

There was also the exceptionally stomach-turning possibility that the Queen would see me as an opportunity to try to get a Sojar with Chimeric Demon abilities from me. Sojar were sterile but from all the information I’d been able to gather that was due to the process they underwent as babies to become Sojar. I had it on the absolute best authority on the subject that I was fertile. Tatay hadn’t done anything to me to make it so although he certainly could’ve if I’d been sterile and wanted to be able to have children.

Dad and Tatay had sat down with me and had a very frank talk about reproduction when I’d hit puberty. I was completely male but I was a Chimeric Demon and all male Chimeric Demons were fully capable of carrying a child as well as fathering a child on a female. As a species, male or female, Chimeric Demon fertility was poor in general. We also couldn’t breed with each other and needed to seek out other species to breed with. That was why males adapted to be able to get pregnant ourselves. Frequently a male Chimeric Demon preferred to get pregnant over impregnating a female as he’d be far better able to hide and protect the child from those that hunted us for body parts or to exploit whatever talent we’d been born with.

Dad was completely male yet he’d carried me and Kyrieleison. He said it was a beautiful experience and despite the way he’d gotten pregnant with me, he told me he loved being pregnant. Someday I might want to have kids and I might even want to carry them. There would never be a day that I’d want to be impregnated by the Queen. That was just all kinds of wrong and gross.

“This is a bit of an unexpected setting for a prayer of vengeance and justice to be coming from,” said an amused male voice.

I looked up ready to offer thanks for appearing in response to my prayer and couldn’t get a word out. I’d had no idea what Lord Ravir looked like having never met him or had reason to pray to him before. I knew all the gods were beautiful because it was kinda tied to that whole divine being thing. Lord Ravir was the most beautiful individual I’d ever seen in my life and I’d seen a lot of gods and their partners. Tatay, because of what he was god of was generally thought of as the most beautiful of all the gods and he most definitely was beautiful. I thought Lord Ravir had him beat.

Lord Ravir was tall and slender, his skin a lush grey-purple. His hair was roughly to his mid-back and the underside of it was black with the hair at the top a soft pale blue. His eyes had ruby red sclera with golden-green irises and blue-white metallic pupils. His lips were light lavender, the corners curved up in a slight smile as he looked at me. I could see a bold, black design on his chest in the open V of his shirt that started at the hollow of his throat and appeared to travel down his chest but couldn’t quite make out what it was. The urge to trace the path of the design with my tongue was wicked strong.

Lust punched me hard in the balls as I stared at him and I immediately went diamond hard. I’d felt desire before but nothing this strong or so immediate. There was almost a physical pull drawing me to him. I wanted him. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to push me to my hands and knees, yank my pants down and shove his cock up my ass. My cock throbbed just thinking about that.

“Why are you praying to me when I can clearly see the Blessings of two gods on you? You must realize that you’d probably be better served to have prayed to one or both of them. As someone with two Blessings I’m sure you know their response would be nearly instant.”

“Gods, you’re beautifully hot,” I blurted out, the words leaving me before I had the chance to veto the statement even if it was completely true. I just barely managed to bite back that I wanted him to fuck me hard right now.

“Thank you. You’re quite stunning yourself. Why have you prayed so desperately to me when you obviously have other options available?” he asked, his smile widening and appreciation lighting his eyes.

My cheeks burned with a blush that I knew was glaring at his compliment. My skin was the colour of new fallen snow and even the faintest blush was ridiculously visible. I probably looked like my cheeks had been smeared with bright red paint going by how hot they felt. I’d never felt so flustered in my entire life. Or so aroused. I mentally scrambled to gather my thoughts so I could explain why I’d prayed to him for his aid. I needed to focus on my mission not the insanely strong urge to demand he fuck me in the next sixty seconds.

“I don’t have other options actually. The Blessings you see are from Lords Malachite and Ji-Sun, two of my parents. If they had even the barest idea that I was here and what I was doing, they and my other father, Qayin, would chew me a new hole for doing something so reckless, probably take turns spanking my ass and then never let me leave the house unsupervised again. I am an adult but there’s a lot of over-protectiveness going on with my parents, especially Baba.”

“You’re the child of a god? Pardon my rudeness, but I get no sense of the divine from you, Blessing aside,” Ravir said with a little frown.

“No, I’m not a natural child of a god. Baba and Tatay did adopt me as their child though and they very much see me as theirs in the same way as my little brother, who is their natural child. You wouldn’t get any sense of the divine from Kyrieleison either despite having two gods as his fathers.

“Dad, that’s Qayin, made Baba, that’s Malachite, promise that he wouldn’t do anything to the Pepsinae Queen for what she did to him and me because he said while the experience was horrible, it gave them me and solidified their relationship. I think Dad squeezed the same promise to do nothing out of Tatay, that’s Ji-Sun, too, but I’m not sure about that. Baba is the one who’s wildly overprotective of his family. Tatay is protective, too, just not as bad as Baba. Baba will hold a grudge forever and when you finally poke him enough to make him mad, his anger is pants-wetting frightening.

“I want, no, I need the Queen to pay with her life for kidnapping and raping Dad and then later having both our throats slit moments after I was born. She had us tossed away like garbage into an actual garbage heap because she thought I was an abomination and Dad was useless because he’d birthed me. She didn’t realize what she’d had in her grasp until it was too late.”

Interest made his eyes sparkled like gems. That was good. I hoped. Getting a god’s attention wasn’t easy but once you had it, it wasn’t overly hard to keep it as long as you kept being interesting. Figuring out what a particular god found interesting... that was an entirely different level of difficulty to deal with.

“What did she have in her grasp that was so valuable? And what is your name? I vaguely remember hearing something about two gods sharing a god-marked individual but I hadn’t paid much attention at the time since it didn’t concern me. I hadn’t realized there was a child involved either even if you’re not the offspring of a god.”

“I’m Kheima and I’m a Chimeric Demon. Dad, Qayin, is a Chimeric Demon and so is my little brother, Kyrieleison. Dad gave birth to both of us because that’s a thing all male Chimeric Demons can do. By rights Kyrieleison should’ve been a god, too, as both Baba and Tatay are his actual fathers but Chimeric Demons always breed true regardless of what species we mate with. Apparently you can’t be both a god and a Chimeric Demon and in his case, being a Chimeric Demon was the stronger of the two.”

“Ji-Sun and Malachite are both his father? How unusual and intriguing. I might need to pay them a visit to ask nosy questions. I suppose having two natural fathers does make a certain sort of sense given that Ji-Sun is the God of Fertility. I wonder how he convinced the Great-Father to allow a child to be born of two gods and their god-marked partner?” Lord Ravir mused, a thoughtful look on his face.

“It was an accident and not something any of them intended to happen. They said it happened the first time they had sex, too. Dad, Baba and Tatay were thrilled but worried that the pregnancy wouldn’t be allowed to continue. Greatpa Hylocereus told them it would as he’d seen it and that it wasn’t going to be stopped unless they made the decision to stop it.”

“If Hylocereus says something is so, then it is. Not even the Great-Father dares to gainsay Hylocereus. How fortunate for them. You have an interesting family, Kheima. You do make a very good case for vengeance and justice, too. I can feel how strong that desire is in you. But, given who your parents are and the other gods lurking in your family tree, one of them an Elder God, it might not be in my best interests to give you my aid especially if they wouldn’t be in favour of what you’re doing,” he said with a considering look. “Annoying one or two gods is not a big deal. Pissing off four of them in one go with one of them an Elder God, that bears taking a moment to contemplate the consequences of giving my aid. There is always a price for vengeance.”

_Shit._

I hadn’t thought that he’d actually say no to helping me because of Baba and Tatay. Or Grandpa Rhas-Khan. Or Greatpa Hylocereus. Gods fucking damn it to hell and back. Sometimes having so many gods in my family was a complete pain in my mortal ass. This wasn’t the first time my close and very personal relationship with several gods had nearly screwed shit up for me.

I almost hadn’t been allowed to join the Immortal Army because of the stupid number of gods in my family and them pulling the god card on my _not_ joining the Immortal Army. Lord Mkhai was the Supreme Commander of said army and the God of Warfare and Weaponry but he wasn’t about to go against the wishes of three fellow gods just for one more mortal soldier, and an unproven one at that, in his army. Lucky for me Greatpa Hylocereus backed me up in my desire to join the Immortal Army and said part of my path involved walking it as a soldier. Since he was the Oracle of the Gods and an Elder God, what he said was almost law to other gods.

“Please, Lord Ravir. I will stand between you and anything my family tries to throw at you for helping me in this. This mission is the goal I’ve worked towards for my entire life once I found out the details of how I came into being. Dad seems okay with letting go of vengeance and justice for himself against the Queen. I’m not.

“I want her dead. I want her terrified and filled with pain as she dies. I want her to look at me and know that the _‘abomination’_ she tried to kill as a newborn babe is the one that ended her life and that I did it with vengeful malice aforethought and a hell of a lot of satisfaction. She tried to kill me and nothing stirs vengeance and hatred in a demon like doing that, which you’re probably very aware of,” I said fiercely feeling the white-hot rage of vengeance and thirst for justice boil through me.

“Vengeful justice always comes with a price. Are you willing to pay it even if the price is steep? The price is often more than what an individual expected. Sometimes it’s more than an individual can bear. The results of vengeance are not always what you envision them to be either but once vengeance has been taken you cannot undo it,” Ravir cautioned with a shrewd look. “I will not fight your battle for you but I can loan you the power necessary to reap the vengeance and justice you desire.”

“I’m willing to pay almost anything you ask of me, Lord Ravir. Please, I beg you; give me the aid I need to finish my mission. It is a very small thing I require. I only need to get past the barriers between me and the Queen and I can’t do that myself. Not completing what I set out to do today will eat at my soul and I know I won’t get another chance to do this. I’m absolutely certain of that. It was ridiculously hard and took several years of careful planning just to find the tiny flaw in the palace defences and get this far.”

I really, really hoped he’d help me in this. I wasn’t just saying that failing today would eat at my soul. I knew it would. With only a few exceptions I honestly would pay any price he demanded of me. Once I made the choice to pray to him, I also made the decision to pay what he asked to see my vengeance through.

“The ultimate price of your vengeful justice is not something I demand but something that will be demanded of you because you choose to travel this path. I don’t know what that personal cost to you will be as I can’t see the future but I again urge caution. Once vengeance is had there is no refusing to pay the price or escaping it. My price for aiding you in your quest is completely separate and we can certainly negotiate that if you wish to continue on this course.”

“Either price doesn’t matter. This needs to happen for me. If it matters any to you in making your decision to help me, it’s my intent to free the men of the carrel; the Queen’s rape harem. They can’t leave unless they’re dead and it wasn’t their choice to be part of the carrel. She tortures and abuses them physically, emotionally and sexually on a daily basis. She rapes them horrifically, forces them to carry the Sojar, her personal guards, and when the men can’t bear another Sojar because their body is too weak, she kills them as they’re no longer of use to her. She is a loathsome individual and the world will be a far better place without her in it.”

I knew there was a lot of anger in my voice and probably the expression on my face but I couldn’t help that. It would probably be stupid to try to hide that from Ravir, too, considering he was the God of Vengeance and would probably be able to spot the desire for that from miles away with both eyes closed.

“Killing the Queen will send the kingdom into chaos. Is your personal vengeance and demand for justice from the Queen worth the upheaval of thousands upon thousands of people’s lives? Some innocents may die because of your actions today. Is your vengeance worth that?”

As I planned my vengeance I’d thought carefully about what effect my actions would have beyond my satisfaction. I’d gathered a huge amount of intel on the Queen, the Pepsinae people and their views on their ruler. There would be upheaval but it wasn’t as if the Queen was a beloved ruler. She remained in power because of her cruel, vicious nature and the fear of the people she ruled over. I firmly believed that the turmoil her death would cause would be heavily outweighed by the good of her being dead.

“A lot of her people have no love for her from the information I gathered. A quietly growing number of people want to de-throne her because of her actions. They can’t do anything though as the Queen is very well-known for swiftly and brutally putting down any hint of insurrection. She apparently has spies everywhere and crushes those who oppose her immediately. The Queen has reigned for a little over three hundred years and has been getting crueler with each passing year. Rumour has it that she killed her mother, the former Queen, to ascend the throne but there’s no proof she did that.

“In any coup, revolution or war there will always be casualties of the innocent. It’s regrettable but also unavoidable. Wrong place, wrong time unfortunately is very much a thing in those situations. I’m a soldier in the Immortal Army and have been for five years. I know very well what happens in war. I’ve thought about that and I’m willing to bear the burden of those deaths even though I’m not the one to kill those people with my own hands in order to see my vengeance and justice through.

“I believe that removing the Queen will be in the best interests of everybody. Yes, some will suffer and maybe even die because of what I need to do but it will serve the greater good for me to kill the Queen. There will be a power vacuum for a little while and possibly some in-fighting amongst the possible successors, but ultimately that won’t be my problem. I’m the catalyst of change not the engine.”

Ravir inclined his head at the point I’d made. He studied me for a moment and a tiny smile twitched up the corners of his mouth. That should’ve worried me a little. I’d seen those kinds of smiles on other gods faces and it usually never ended well for the mortal involved. Despite my having a stupid number of gods in my family, I was one hundred percent mortal and subject to the whims of the gods. I hoped this wouldn’t hurt too bad.

“My price is you for a brief interlude. You are decidedly lovely and I feel a very strong pull toward you. I see no reason not to indulge myself if you’re willing,” Ravir said as he boldly looked me up and down, his gaze zeroing in on the erection I still had, lingering for far too long to be even remotely polite and leaving me with little doubt of what he meant when he said his price was me.

Trading sexual favours wasn’t unusual or even unexpected when dealing with a god. They were a very lusty bunch. I almost blurted out ‘done’ before my brain kicked into gear and told my dick to shut the fuck up. Thinking with your dick was never a good idea in any situation and could be especially bad when making a deal with a god. Negotiation with a god was never as simple as just agreeing to whatever they demanded and should never be done without finding out all the details of just what you were agreeing to. Gods were almost as bad as demons when it came to making deals. Frequently what you thought you were getting or agreeing to wasn’t what the god was actually offering or the terms of said deal were not at all what you’d assumed the god meant.

“You’ll need to be more specific, Lord Ravir. Me as a Servant to you? Me as a tool of vengeance for you in another instance? Me as your drinking companion? Saying your price is me leaves a lot of interpretation open and I know that’s never a good thing where gods are concerned. Also, what sort of timeline are we discussing here? One and done? A day? A week? A month? Longer? I know very well that the concept of “a brief interlude” is vastly different between god and mortal so you’re going to have to be very precise in telling me what you want of me and for how long.”

Lord Ravir threw back his head and laughed. I was pretty sure that was a good laugh. I’d heard other gods laugh just before the smiting started and his laugh sounded nothing like that. I probably hadn’t offended him and was likely safe from any smiting or even just a casual use of his godhood that could still squash me like a bug.

“I want you in my bed, fully participating in sex with me. Normally I wouldn’t request such a thing but you did say that I was beautifully hot the moment you looked at me and you’ve got a rather spectacular erection that hasn’t gone away yet. I know some males get hard when engaged in violence as blood-lust rages through them but I don’t get that impression from you. If I was to guess I’d say you’re highly controlled and methodical in battle. That leads me to the assumption that it’s me your body is reacting to thus my price.

“There’s something about you that draws me in. It’s more than your physical appearance, which is exceptionally pretty, but I can’t quite figure out what that something is. You’re interesting and intriguing and find me appealing so thought it would be a price we’d both be satisfied with. If you don’t enjoy the company of men in your bed and I’m wrong about the reason for the lovely tent pole in your pants, I apologize and I’ll ask some other price of you for my aid. I do not enjoy the unwilling in my bed.”

“No, you’re not wrong. I very much like men in my bed. Or I’m sure that I would like them there if any were freaking brave enough to join me. Having two gods as your parents and more gods as grandparents and great-grandparents puts a severe knot in what could be my happy sex life once prospective partners find that out,” I said with more annoyance than I’d intended.

Ravir blinked in surprise before he laughed again. The laugh was filled with delight and amusement. “Arjan is a cheeky, devious bastard.”

“Lord Arjan? Why would you call him that? He seemed nice and kind of gentle the couple of times I met him. And what does he have to do with anything between us?”

Ravir raised an eyebrow at me. “You know Arjan? You’ve met him? I suppose I shouldn’t be all that surprised given that your parents are gods.”

“Yeah, I’ve met him. We’re not on like on a first name basis or anything. Oleander, Lord Arjan’s husband, is my superior officer and he’s the one who trained me. He got an amulet of luck from Lord Arjan to give to me to help me on this mission because Oleander couldn’t come with me. I’m doing this on my own and not as something sanctioned by the Immortal Army so Oleander couldn’t give me backup. The amulet has already saved my life. Literally. It stopped a sword from shredding my heart. A demon can regenerate from truly terrible injuries but not a destroyed heart.”

“Arjan lost a sword duel to me. In payment I asked for a bit of luck in finding someone that would be able to withstand the attentions and hold the attention of a god for more than just a time or two between the sheets as I grow weary of the constant parade of partners. Word of advice; be forever wary of Arjan when he smiles at you. He may look sweet and gentle but he is not. Should he decide to visit ill fortune on you, your life will quickly fall into a hellish nightmare. As a fellow god I’m mostly immune to the worst effects of his ill fortune. Despite that, when he focuses his power, god or not, it is a level of hideous you really can’t appreciate until you’re in the thick of it yourself. His good fortune shining upon you, even muted by fellow godhood, is astounding and that appears to me what is happening here.”

“It’s not unreasonable to be wary of any god when they smile at you after agreeing to a deal,” I said with a serious nod. “At least that’s been my experience.”

Ravir laughed again. “You are quite refreshing, Kheima, and I think we’ll both enjoy our time together if you agree to my price. To answer your questions, for my aid in this vengeance quest of yours I require you in my bed for twenty-four hours although not all of that time needs to be spent in an actual bed and not all of that time will involve sex. I am aware that you are mortal and will temper my desire and my strength so I don’t exhaust or harm you to the point of injury, sickness or death.”

“Fair enough. You’re not worried about what Baba or Tatay will say about having me in your bed? Or what they might do when they find out? I wasn’t kidding when I said Baba is really protective over his family. Especially me and Kyrieleison because we’re completely mortal. Like stupidly protective. Dad scolds him all the time about it and even Tatay says Baba needs to relax.”

“Thank you for your concern. But I am a God as well,” Ravir said with a little dismissive wave of his hand.

“Yeah, I haven’t forgotten that. One-on-one, you’d probably be fine and the two of you would likely fight to a draw. But Tatay would feel like it’s his duty to back up Baba and step in to help. Grandpa Rhas-Khan might get involved, too, because Baba is his son and nobody messes with his son. Greatpa Hylocereus would probably stay out of it because he rarely involves himself directly but you never know with him. There’s also Dad, Grandpa Eilam and Greatpa Deagan. Dad and Greatpa Deagan couldn’t do that much but you do not want Grandpa Eilam pissed at you. He’s still a Mage-born Fatebender and a frighteningly powerful one at that who also happens to be god-marked. God or not, he can really fuck your shit up if he decides to.”

“These are all good points but there’s no need for you to worry. The gods do sometimes fight amongst each other but it’s rarely a to-the-death thing. I can certainly hold my own against most gods in a fight. To be clear, you are an adult, yes?” Ravir asked giving me a critical look.

“Yes. I turned twenty-three a couple of months back,” I said knowing that I looked more mid-teen than full adult.

“Then who you decide to take to your bed, mortal, god or something in between, is none of their business,” Ravir said with firmness I completely agreed with.

“Oh, I know that and you know that but that information apparently hasn’t sunk into Baba’s head yet. I’m not sure it ever will in all honesty. Maybe it’s a god thing with the way you view time. He still thinks of me as his little boy easily half the time. I mean, I love that he adopted me and sees me exactly the same as Kyrieleison who is his natural child. But it’s also a real pain in my ass that he still mentally views me as a kid needing the protection of his parent.”

“Let me deal with Malachite’s possible reaction to taking you to bed. I’m not worried about that in the least. What is your answer, Kheima?” Ravir asked in a soft voice. “Do you accept my price for aiding you in your quest for vengeance and justice?”

“Yes. I will eagerly join you in bed for twenty-four hours for your aid in getting my vengeance and justice from the Queen,” a broad smile spreading across my lips. “The only stipulation I put on this deal is that we discuss any kink play beforehand. Dick in ass or mouth is totally fine with me. Bondage, impact play, cock stuffing, fisting, or basically anything other than a dick in mouth or ass or a handjob requires discussion beforehand, setting limits and safe words. I do ask for a little patience when it gets down to dick in ass as I’ve never gotten further than mutual jerk offs and blowjobs.”

Ravir raised an eyebrow at me and I could see that I’d surprised him as well as made lust flash through his eyes. I was extremely aware that gods had incredibly strong sexual appetites and generally seemed to be very, very kinky creatures. I also knew that most of them seemed to have a weird kink for virgins, which I really didn’t understand, but whatever. I assumed it was some sort of strange god thing and it would possibly work in my favour in this instance.

“You enjoy those sexual activities? Arjan might have gone a touch overboard with his bit of luck that he owed me. Not that I’m complaining in the slightest,” Ravir said with a broad grin.

“I have no idea if I like the kinkier side of sex or not since I’ve never tried any of it. Some stuff sounds interesting and I’d be up for trying it but probably not right out of the gate. Tatay is the God of Carnal Desire and he made sure that both me and Kyrieleison were very well educated in all things sexual. I’m not shy about sexual things either because of Tatay. Sex is a natural thing and not something to be ashamed about enjoying.”

“I completely agree. I think this will be a rewarding experience for both of us. I agree to your terms, Kheima,” Ravir said his voice taking on godly tones.

I felt a tingle of power wash over me as the bargain was accepted. My cock twitched in anticipation and my nipples tightened. Dad hadn’t been kidding when he said feeling a god’s power flow over and through you when you were aroused by said god was absolutely lust-stirring. I was so hard my cock ached and my balls felt like I hadn’t come in weeks when I’d jerked off in the shower that morning.

Having sex with Ravir was going to be awesome. I could feel it in my bones and barely wait for that to happen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Ravir’s smile grew as he stared at my groin. He stepped close and cupped my dick making me hiss softly at how good that simple touch felt. He leaned down a little, his lips brushing feather-light over my ear. He smelled as good as he looked and I bit back the lusty moan that wanted to leave my throat. Chimeric Demons had great hearing but an average sense of smell yet I was willing to bet my god-forged kukri that I could scent the beginnings of sexual pheromones coming from him.

He smelled heady as fuck and I wanted to just breathe that in and let the lust I was feeling swirl through me and take over. A weirdly pleasurable tingle ghosted through my ass making my nipples go hard and ache to be touched. I gave myself a hard mental shake. I had a mission to finish. But I wanted the touch I was getting as well as so much more. Sometimes the life choices you were faced with sucked hard in a really unfun way.

“I believe we should do something about this distraction before you start seeking your vengeance. You need to be focused on your task and not this piece of deliciousness between your legs. Would you like me to suck your cock, Kheima?” Ravir asked in a low, sultry voice as he gave my cock a firm squeeze. “I’d very much like to suck your cock.”

“Yes. Oh, gods, yes please,” I groaned as my lust surged through me so fast it was a wonder I didn’t stagger from the force of it. I didn’t bother trying to lie because he was pressing his hand against my hard cock and knew I was very, very aroused.

Ravir sank gracefully to his knees in front of me, my pants pooling around my ankles at the same time. A little smirk appeared on my lips at his use of his power as a god to drop my pants in less than an eye blink. Maybe I wasn’t the only one so very eager for some attention to my dick. My cock bobbed excitedly now that it was free from the confines of my clothes. Ravir made a sound of approval in his throat before cupping my balls and stroking a finger over the head of my cock, smearing the fluid that had gathered there over my skin. A shiver danced down my spine and curled around my balls at how good that simple touch felt.

“Shit, I’m not going to last long. I usually have better control, I swear it,” I said with a gasp at the intensely good feeling of his hands fondling my dick and balls. “At least when I jerk myself off I have better control.”

“Don’t hold back on my account. We’ll have hours to play with each other’s body later. This is simply to take the edge off for you so you can focus and complete your vengeance without the distraction of this lovely erection.”

“What about you?” I managed to pant out as Ravir stroked me lightly from base to tip, the sensation way better than my own hand or the few times I’d had someone else handle my cock.

“I don’t need to be focused like you do. The wait for my pleasure will be a lovely sexual tease that I’ll enjoy,” Ravir said before leaning forward, kissing the head of my cock and then swallowing me down in one move.

My breath whooshed out of me and I groaned deep in my throat. Fuck that felt amazing. I’d been blown before but I’d never had someone take me to the root in one move. I wasn’t obscenely endowed but I was a demon and we tended to fall on the larger-than-average side of things in the cock department for most humanoids.

Ravir’s hands slid up the outside of my thighs before gliding back and cupping my ass, giving my cheeks a little squeeze. He started bobbing his head and my knees wobbled at how intensely good that felt. I braced my hands on his shoulders and he hummed his approval, the gentle vibration on my dick making me moan softly. My ephemeral hand settled on his head and tangled in his impossibly soft hair. He bobbed his head up and down; sucking on my cock like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. I struggled to hold back the urge to come because I wanted the almost too good sensation to go on forever.

“Give in to the pleasure, Kheima. Let me taste your desire,” Ravir demanded in a low voice as he pulled off my dick for a moment. “We’ll certainly do this again later when you’re not so pressed for time as I genuinely enjoy sucking cock. Yours feels very good in my mouth and I will have it there again in the very near future.”

A thrill shot up my spine at his words and my cheeks heated with a blush. He began subtly pushing and pulling my hips back and forth, making me fuck his mouth, small sounds of pleasure coming from him. My breath was coming in sharp pants as arousal quickly built in me both from the pleasure he was giving me as well as his obvious delight in sucking me off. I hadn’t been joking when I’d told him that I wasn’t going to last long. I wanted the glorious feel of his mouth on my dick to go on forever at the same time that I wanted to blow my load down his throat immediately.

I swore softly when the desire I was feeling surged through me like an impossibly huge tidal wave and sensations that weren’t mine crashed through me. I stared down at the top of Ravir’s head and had only a second or two before my orgasm slammed into me to realize that I’d sunk the fingers of my ephemeral hand into his skull and was feeling his desire and pleasure in sucking me off.

I shouted as the first pulse of my seed hit the back of his throat, the release intense. My mind reeled at the unexpected ghostly sensation of a dick in my mouth spurting come down my throat to the same beat that my cock was doing in Ravir’s mouth. Far too much godly power suddenly burst through the connection I’d accidentally made between us. I screamed in a combination of agony and ecstasy as one final, ball-aching spurt left me. My vision sharply narrowed to a pinpoint of light and my knees collapsed. I whimpered as my body went limp and my ephemeral hand slid from Ravir’s head, severing the connection. Strong arms cradled me and kept me from crashing to a heap on the floor.

My heart thundered in my chest and I swore I could feel my blood rushing through my veins. I was panting like I’d run for miles in thigh-deep water into a gale force wind. The scent of pheromones or whatever coming from Ravir was so thick I was almost willing to swear I could taste it. A completely unexpected tingle zinged through my ass as I inhaled his scent and the desire to have him inside me made my ass clench pleasurably. My muscles had a strange heaviness to them like they’d been overworked but felt energized at the same time. Desire still swirled lazily through me but my dick was soft and there was no urgency in my balls to unload. Damn. Getting sucked off by a god was amazing. No wonder Dad looked so happy and relaxed all the time.

“That was entirely unexpected but deeply erotic. You will do that again, Kheima,” Ravir said with a hint of godly command in his voice.

“Come in your mouth? Sure. Any time you want,” I said my voice a little rough. “You have amazing cock sucking skills. I mean, I don’t have a lot of people to compare you to but damn you have some fantastic skills even discounting the fact that you’re a god and have probably had thousands of years to perfect your skills.”

Ravir laughed before claiming my lips in a fiercely gentle kiss. I could taste myself on his lips and while I usually wasn’t a big fan of the taste of come, it was weirdly kinky-erotic to taste it on his lips and know that it was mine. Something in my head really liked the idea of Ravir having a nice helping of my come in his belly and my dick twitched in exhausted interest.

“I’ll most definitely suck the honeyed milk from your balls again but that wasn’t what I meant when I told you that you will do that again. What you did with your ephemeral hand was exquisite. I’ve never felt anything like that before with a partner and I’ve existed for aeons. I assume that is your Gift as a Chimeric Demon? I’m also well pleased that you were able to bear the little bit of my godhood that you did without serious injury. I apologize for that exposure but in my defence you caught me completely off-guard as I’ve never had to worry about accidental over-exposure to my godhood in such a manner. My control is absolute just as it is for any god.”

I nodded. “I didn’t mean to do that; sink my fingers into your head. It just sort of happened. I’ve never done that before when having sex. I don’t know why I did it either. I didn’t even realize I’d pushed my fingers into your head until I felt your desire slam into me. Fuck, I could’ve killed you and I most definitely don’t want that,” I hurried to explain.

“I’m sure you know killing a god is extremely difficult if not almost impossible for a mortal unless certain conditions are met. A god-killing weapon is required as well as being god-touched. You are most definitely god-touched but your ephemeral hand is not the weapon necessary to truly harm me. If you tried to use your ephemeral hand on me in such a fashion, I’d likely be inconvienced for a short time, have a hideous headache and be quite angry at an attempt on my life but ultimately fine.

“What you did was exquisite because I could feel the ghostly touch of lips and tongue on my cock as I sucked you. Desire that I knew wasn’t mine twisted through me making everything more intense. You nearly made me orgasm right along with you and my control is very good. I want that same touch from you when I slide my cock home in your ass. I want to experience what you do when you take my cock for the first time. It will be glorious for both of us I’m sure and I’m very much looking forward to that.”

I stared at Ravir with wide eyes. Wow. That was freaky cool that the link worked both ways during sex. I’d be too worried about accidentally killing my partner to try that with another mortal. Gods were incredibly hard to kill and if Ravir said I couldn’t kill him with my ephemeral hand buried in his skull, then I believed him. He’d know way better than me what it took to kill a god. He could be wrong as death wasn’t part of his godhood so it was technically out of his omnipotent knowledge base. But I was pretty sure he had a damn thorough understanding of what would or wouldn’t kill a god.

“What is the deal with you gods, virgins and getting super hard over having one?” I asked before snapping my mouth shut. What the hell prompted me to ask that?

“Gods are frequently possessive, greedy, jealous, egotistical, competitive beings, which I’m very confident you already know given your family. We deeply crave having something no one else has or will ever be able to have. To have a virgin is to have something that no one else ever will of that person. I can’t really explain it better than that. Call it a quirk of godhood.”

“Gods are weird,” I said with a little head shake.

Ravir laughed again. “Yes, we are. You, Kheima, are shaping up to be an utter delight. I’m immensely enjoying your attitude. It’s refreshing to have someone not a god be so informal with me. I know you can show the proper deference I’m due but this unexpected casualness of yours is oddly captivating.”

“Well you did just have my cock down your throat and you swallowed every last drop of my seed so I felt being all formal with you at this point would be silly. I mean, unless you want me to be all formal with you because that’s a kink for you? I know some people get off on that. Belial is like that with Lord Kai-Wen. I don’t think that’s my kink though. It’s hot to watch Belial and Lord Kai-Wen but more in a watching a show sort of thing than a I-want-to-do-that kind of thing for me.”

“Belial is lovely to watch kneeling for Kai-Wen. But no, that isn’t one of my kinks. I enjoy that sort of play on occasion but the times are few and far between. I’m one of the least kinky of the gods. Or so I’ve been told by many other gods. We will most definitely discuss any kinks we wish to try later. It’s highly doubtful that you’ll want to indulge me in my kink. That’s perfectly fine as not many do and I accept this.”

“Now I’m curious. Remember, Tatay is the God of Carnal Desire and he made very sure I was extremely educated in the subject. No actual experience in almost everything he taught me but I passed the written exam with flying colours,” I said with a grin.

Ravir threw back his head and laughed before leaning in and kissing me hard. “You are an absolute delight. I haven’t laughed this much in decades. Thank you for that gift, Kheima. While I could sit here for ages with you in my arms enjoying the weight of your body against me and the laughter you’re gifting me with, I did promise to aid you in your vengeance. I’m also selfishly eager to collect your payment to me for that aid.”

“I’m pretty eager for both things, too. Business first and bedroom fun later though. I can’t get through the barrier on the door to the carrel. I’m nowhere near as good magically speaking as Kyrieleison and the barrier is way above my skill level to try to break. There’s another one on the door that connects the Queen’s chambers to the carrel and I’m guessing that if I can’t pass through this one, I won’t be able to pass through that one either. Beyond getting past those barriers I should be able to handle everything else on my own.”

Ravir stood, easily pulling me to my feet. My pants were back in place without my having to do anything and he gestured to the door. I moved quietly and pressed my ear to the wood, listening for any sounds of movement on the other side. Just because I had the help of a god to complete my vengeance didn’t mean he’d stop me from getting my ass killed because I was suddenly overconfident and being sloppy.

Chimeric Demons had excellent hearing that was much better than many species. If I concentrated and there wasn’t a lot of background noise, I could easily hear someone breathing from nearly ten feet away. If there wasn’t any background noise to interfere, I could hear their heartbeat at the same distance but I’d almost give myself a headache from straining so hard. Listening for the subtle sounds of shuffling feet, armour pieces rubbing together or the soft snick of a weapon being drawn was nearly effortless in comparison.

When I heard nothing for several long minutes I eased the door open a crack and scanned what I could of the hallway. There was nobody within sight and still no sounds of people laying in wait, trying to be as silent as possible. I opened the door only enough to slip through into the hall and paused again listening for anything that would alert me to people waiting to pounce the second I poked my head around a corner.

Once I was sure that I wasn’t about to be jumped, I moved to the door of the carrel. Ravir moved without a sound behind me. He approached the door and lightly touched the air a few inches from the wood with a finger. There was the tiniest of pops and for a second or two the air seemed to shimmer. He stepped back and I reached out to touch the door. There was no resistance to my touching the door. Not that I thought there would be. It was still pretty cool to know that Ravir had dispelled a very powerful spell with just a light touch of his finger and probably not even a drop of his power as a god.

_Sweet._

I didn’t bother to listen at the door for sound to try to figure out who or what was on the other side. I was sure I’d hear people in the room because the men of the carrel generally didn’t leave the carrel unless they were dead. The people I could hear could be the men of the carrel, Sojar lying in wait or some combination of the two. I couldn’t tell who they were by muffled sounds alone so I needed to take the chance that the Sojar would rightly assume that no one but them or the Queen would be able to enter the carrel and so wouldn’t bother stationing any Sojar in it.

I eased the door open and entered the carrel. A dozen men milled around in the center of the large room, worry and fear on their faces. They immediately froze when they saw me and Ravir enter. I raised a finger on my ephemeral hand to my lips, wordlessly telling them to be quiet. Thankfully, not a single peep came from any of the men. Despite my being a failed Sojar, I didn’t look like a Pepsinae and I was still dressed in slave clothes. Hopefully that made me seem less of a threat to the men of the carrel. All the men were naked and several of them were in various stages of pregnancy. Two of them looked very wan and exhausted, their bellies huge and they were likely not that far away from delivery. It would probably be their last pregnancy before the Queen had them killed for outliving their usefulness to her judging by their physical appearance.

_Shit._

I hadn’t really thought about some of the men being very pregnant and weak and what that might mean as far as freeing them. I hadn’t been able to get any information on the state of the men of the carrel before my mission, the Queen, the medic and the Sojar being the only ones who ever saw the men once they were in the carrel.

Once the Queen was dead they’d certainly be free to go wherever they wanted. Being a pregnant man for most species would be a complication though and I wasn’t sure what would happen or what was supposed to happen when it came time to deliver the Sojar they carried. I hadn’t looked into the particulars of the men birthing the Sojar they carried as it hadn’t been important in planning my mission.

Dad’s situation with having me was completely different as male Chimeric Demons got pregnant and gave birth all the time. It was a natural thing for a male Chimeric Demon. That wasn’t the case of the men of the carrel. I was nearly one hundred percent sure that none of the men would want their pregnancy to continue given how they got pregnant and what they were pregnant with. I didn’t even know if it was possible to stop the pregnancies in the regular way because of how the men were made to carry the Sojar.

_Fuck._

I was going to have to see if there was anything Tatay could do for them since he was also the God of Fertility. But that meant telling him, Dad and Baba, what I’d done before I was ready to do that, if ever. I was not looking forward to that conversation. Even if this vengeance of mine played out perfectly and I was completely and utterly fine at the end of it all, I was going to get the ass-chewing of my life from Dad, Baba and Tatay for doing something so potentially fatal.

I approached the men slowly, my hands open and loose at my sides. I didn’t want to spook them or provoke them into doing anything rash. So far nobody had said anything or moved but that could change in a heartbeat. It was difficult to say how beaten down the men were and whether or not they’d listen to me and remain in the carrel until I’d dealt with the Queen. I hoped they’d listen. If they didn’t, it was out of my hands and ultimately wouldn’t impact my mission all that much if they broke and ran. As long as they ran without alerting the Queen and her Sojar, I was fine with it. I started speaking in a soft voice pitched low so it wouldn’t carry any further than the men I was speaking to.

“I’m Kheima. My Dad, Qayin, was kidnapped by the Queen twenty-three years ago and impregnated with me. When the Queen saw me, she said I was an abomination and slit my throat in front of my Dad before slitting his throat as well. She had us tossed into a refuse pit like any other piece of garbage. She didn’t know we’re demons and that slitting our throats wouldn’t kill us and only served to piss us off.

“I’m here to get vengeance on the Queen for trying to kill me and my Dad. I’m going to kill her and all her Sojar. I’ve already taken out a good number of Sojar. I’ve trained and planned for this for years. You’re all free to go right now if you want although I’d ask that you do so quietly. Or you can wait and I’ll ask my Tatay, Lord Ji-Sun, God of Fertility, if he can do anything to help you with the Sojar you’re currently carrying if you don’t want to continue the pregnancy. If he can’t help you, he would know which god could help.”

“You’re going to kill the Queen? Gods blessings on you if you can. I’ll pray for that from the very bottom of my soul. What makes you so sure a god would do anything for us if you asked?” one of the heavily pregnant men asked. “And who is the man with you? He’s not a Sojar. How was he able to get past the barrier? Is he also seeking vengeance on the Queen?”

“I am Ravir, God of Vengeance and Justice. Kheima prayed for my aid to reap his vengeance and I have answered his prayers.”

Several of the men gasped and immediately went to their knees. The men who were pregnant started to sink down as well with the ones in the last stage of pregnancy struggling to kneel without falling. Ravir waved a hand.

“Be at ease,” Ravir commanded. “I can feel your desire for vengeance surging now that you know it’s a possibility. Kheima will carry it out for all of you.”

There was a combination of cautious hope and resignation on the faces of the men. There had been other attempts on the Queen over the time she’d ruled. Obviously none of those attempts succeeded. I could tell the men it would be different this time but until they saw her lifeless body, it was just talk on my part, which was a totally fair mind set to have.

“Tatay is one of my fathers. I have three. Qayin is the one who birthed me and the other two are Lord Malachite, God of Stone and Crystals and Lord Ji-Sun, God of Carnal Desire, Love and Fertility. My Grandpa is Lord Rhas-Khan, God of the Abyss. My Greatpa is Lord Hylocereus, Elder God of Mysteries and Oracle of the Gods. Several gods will listen to me when I ask something of them because they are family. They’ll help me find answers for the same reason. I swear to all of you that I’ll do whatever I can to free you from the Queen and the Sojar she forced on you.

“The only thing I need from all of you is to stay quiet and not alert the Queen or her Sojar. I utterly believe that I can kill her and it will happen today. I’m taking a bit of a gamble that all of you hate her for what she’s done to you in making you bear her Sojar and for the casual cruelty and abuse she puts you through daily. Dad told me what he endured and unless she’s had a massive change of heart and all the intel I gathered before starting this mission is wrong, she’s still a cruel, sadistic bitch that needs to die.”

“We’ll be as silent as a mouse with a hungry hawk circling overhead,” said the heavily pregnant man who’d spoken. “Kill the Queen and make her suffer as much as you can while you do it. This is my fourth Sojar and my last. My body won’t be able to bear another so I know once I birth this creature; my life will be ended by the Queen with malicious glee. She now takes great pleasure in making us watch the men struggle to birth her Sojar knowing that we see ourselves in that position. We’ve all been forced to watch the sadistic delight she takes in stabbing to death the men who can’t bear her another Sojar. I’d love to twist a knife deep into her blackened and shrivelled soul myself.”

The men all nodded at that. The anger and hate blooming to life on their faces was chilling but I completely understood it. I had a deep well of anger and hate for the Queen, too, and I hadn’t endured any of what they had. I didn’t even remember having my throat slit because I’d literally been minutes old. That didn’t mean I hated her any less because I couldn’t remember the attack.

I actually had a very strange relationship with blades and being cut. I was fascinated by them and enchanted with a well made blade. I loved the feel of a well-balanced blade in my hand and blades, particularly knives, were my back-up weapons of choice if I couldn’t use my ephemeral hand for some reason. I also deeply enjoyed the sensation of that same blade parting my flesh when I was aroused. That had been an accidental discovery and a hella confusing revelation for my newly awakening desire. Fortunately I had Tatay to go to and he’d helped me understand that I wasn’t some sort of deviant because I got off on being cut while aroused.

He’d also educated me on how to play responsibly with blades and given me some general guidelines to follow when the time came to play that way with someone else. I hadn’t found anyone yet but I was still very young and even without Tatay telling me, I wasn’t about to rush into that sort of play with just anyone. Not knowing what you were doing with knife play in the bedroom could quickly turn fatal even with demon healing on my side.

“All of you deserve to have your vengeance as much as I do for what she’s done to us. Tell you what, stay here and once I’ve dealt with the Sojar I’m sure are in her chambers with her, I’ll hold her immobile and whoever wants to stick a knife in her, can.”

“You’d do that for us?” one of the other men asked, the fire of vengeful justice blazing to life in his eyes.

“Absolutely. All of you can get as knife happy as you want on her. My goal is to make her hurt and make her feel utter terror as she dies. I also want her to know that the “abomination” she tried to kill was the one responsible for her death. Whether it’s my knife or one wielded by one of you, the ultimate cause of her death will be me and my actions.”

“You are a surprising delight, Kheima. I might need to offer you a position as one of mine because of your understanding of vengeance and justice,” Ravir said softly into my ear.

“I might consider it if the benefits of the job are tempting enough,” I replied with a little smile.

Ravir chuckled and discreetly palmed my ass, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I assure you the benefits can be most excellent.”

The heat of desire flushed my cheeks and my cock twitched in interest. He still smelled amazingly good although I couldn’t have said exactly what the scent was. Whatever it was, it gave me another deliciously subtle tingle in my ass and made my nipples hard. While I thought it was fantastic that Ravir wanted to get into my pants again, now was not to the time for that. I firmly moved his hand off my ass with my ephemeral hand and turned my head to give him a hard look. I knew from a lifetime of experience that one needed to be immovably firm with a god if you expected said god to take you seriously.

“Play later, work now. This is not negotionable no matter how much I’m sure I’m going to like play time later,” I said in a low voice that I knew wouldn’t carry beyond us.

Ravir grinned and took a step back from me; his hands open at his sides. Cocky bastard.

“There’s a tiny secret entrance hidden behind a life-size painting of the Queen near the fireplace. If she sees things going badly for her she might try to bolt through it. I can’t say for certain if she’d fit because it was designed for children to use and even then it’s a squeeze for a larger child. Desperate people will do desperate things and I’m very sure she’ll be desperate to save her own skin,” said a tiny, delicate looking boy with heavy bruising all over his body. If he was older than sixteen, I’d eat my boots.

“You know this how?” I asked. I hadn’t found even a hint about a secret passage into the Queen’s chambers during my intel gathering or I’d have checked into using that to get to her.

“I was one of the children that used the entrance to bring the Queen information about potential men for her carrel. She told me I was helping her to keep the kingdom strong and safe. She gave me exotic sweets and made me feel special with the attention she paid me so even for a child, I was stupidly easy to manipulate. She uses orphan children for this purpose because we’re ones that nobody would miss if they disappeared. Once the kids are too big to fit through the passage, she kills them so word never gets out about the passage.

“Sometimes, if you’re unlucky enough to be a pretty boy and don’t grow very big, she keeps you like a pet, locked in a room, until you’re grown enough to get at least one Sojar off of. That’s how I ended up in the carrel. The passage leads directly out of the palace and if she gets away, you’ll have hard time finding her. There are people utterly devoted to her, she knows who they are and that they’ll hide and help her.”

“Keep her away from the portrait just in case. Got it. Thanks for the information. Not to be rude, but how old are you?”

“Thirteen. I’m going to pray with everything in me that you succeed because the Queen said that once the bruising on me heals, she’s going to put a Sojar inside me and I’d rather die than have that happen after seeing what a man goes through to be implanted and to birth a Sojar.”

Muscles in my jaw clenched at that. I thought I knew about the horrors that the Queen visited on the men of her carrel. Learning that there was more awfulness was infuriating and made me even more sure that she needed to die.

I moved to the door that led to the Queen’s chambers, Ravir close behind me. He lightly touched the air in front of the door and just like before there was a soft pop and shimmer of air as the spell was dismissed. I hoped the sound and shimmer wasn’t visible from the other side as well but I hadn’t thought to ask the men if they’d seen or heard anything when the other spell had been dismissed before I went to the other door.

I pressed my ear to the door and listened. It was fairly quiet on the other side but I could hear the soft scrape of a foot on stone as someone shifted position and a low clink as steel brushed against stone. I concentrated harder and faintly heart two distinctive heartbeats, one on either side of the door. Someone was breathing harshly, too, like they were trying to keep going beyond pain. I frowned a little at that.

If one of the Sojar was wounded but alive and mobile, that meant I’d screwed up and hadn’t finished one of them that I’d encountered. That irritated me. I wasn’t sure how any of the Sojar could survive having my hand thrust into their brain or heart but it seemed like it had happened. I’d have to be doubly sure that the Sojar I attacked weren’t just incapacitated but dead. I soundlessly unsheathed the kukri strapped to my back.

“That is a beautiful piece of functional martial art,” Ravir said in a whisper into my ear, appreciation heavy in his tone. “It’s god-forged but not a god-killer and bears the Blessing of Mkhai. Interesting. I would see this more closely when we’re done here.”

I nodded my head and gave him a little smile. I liked that he could immediately tell that it was a weapon forged by a god. I was ridiculously pleased that he liked my knife, too. I was an excellent knife fighter and the kukri had been a gift from my fathers for passing the final test and becoming one of the soldiers in the Immortal Army.

Lady Bao-Tein, Goddess of the Forge and Metalworking, had made it for me and I loved it. Lord Mkhai, God of Warfare and Weaponry, had Blessed the blade as a sort of roundabout thanks to Greatpa Hylocereus for sending him Kathiel, a Mage-born necromancer, who was his husband. The blade would never dull or break unless I turned it on a god and if I dropped it, a word from me would have it fly back to my hand in an instant whether it was on the ground or in someone else’s hand.

I looked at the hinges of the door and saw that it opened into the carrel. I moved to stand on the latch side of the door and rested my ephemeral hand on the knob. Ravir moved away from the door making sure not to crowd me without being told, which I appreciated. My ephemeral arm was nearly twice as long as my regular arms giving me extended reach which would be a huge bonus in this situation. I was positive there were more Sojar in the Queen’s chambers than the three I could hear so I needed as much surprise on my side as I could get. I twisted the knob as slowly and quietly as possible before I flung the door open.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The sudden opening of the door caught the Sojar on either side of it off-guard. I lunged in with my kukri, slashing the guard closest to me through the neck nearly decapitating him. I grinned viciously. If he was some flavour of demon, which was a possibility, it would be very dicey to regenerate that wound. Even if he could, it would take days and he wouldn’t be conscious for most of that time. I’d finish him later by removing his head as he wasn’t a combatant anymore and not a threat.

My ephemeral hand speared into the other guard’s head at the same time that I used my kukri. He shrieked in terror and pain for half a second before I squished his brain through my fingers like an overripe fruit. I jerked my hand back and quickly scanned the room. There were ten more Sojar in the huge room. The Queen had frozen in mid-stride not more than ten feet away from me when I’d flung the door open. I was absolutely sure that in the next second or two either the Queen was going to scream for the Sojar in the hall or one of the Sojar in the room was going to sound an alarm. Perhaps both things would happen.

I sprang at the Queen, balled my ephemeral hand into a fist and drove it into her jaw. She never had the chance to utter a single word as her head snapped sideways before she dropped unconscious to the floor like the sack of shit she was. She wasn’t going to be escaping anywhere in the next few minutes so now I didn’t have to worry about tracking her movements as I killed the Sojar protecting her.

Forward momentum had me at another Sojar before he had time to fully react and I thrust my ephemeral hand into his head, pulping his brain. Three dead Sojar and the Queen out cold in under five seconds. I was on a good roll. There were now nine Sojar to go at the moment, one of which was injured. This was doable. The injured one was the same Sojar that nearly shoved a sword through my heart. I had no idea how he was still alive as I’d crushed his heart with my ephemeral hand.

One of the Sojar spat a very uncomplimentary name at me before rushing at me and a weird tingle teased through the back of my head. The main door to the Queen’s chambers crashed open half a second later. Six more Sojar flooded into the room. My lips tightened into a flat line. Fifteen Sojar, all of them looking for my blood. Not the best odds but it could’ve been worse. There might’ve been even more Sojar in the room and hallway than I was about to deal with. I knew there were more Sojar still alive in the palace than were currently in the room with me although I hadn’t been able to get an exact number of current Sojar during my intel gathering.

The Sojar were trained soldiers but so was I. They had numbers but I had my ephemeral hand which evened up the odds significantly for me. The room was also stupidly large and there were a lot of things that I could use for cover and as obstacles between me and the Sojar. I wasn’t overly physically strong but I was fast and I knew to play to my strengths in a fight if I wanted to win.

The Sojar probably wouldn’t use the furniture in the room in the same way I was going to as they gave zero thought to their safety in an effort to protect and defend the Queen. Strength, the ability to seemingly ignore high levels of pain in battle and being able to take large amounts of damage without falling were their biggest advantages and they pressed those buttons hard. To quickly bring down a Sojar you needed to strike hard and fast, aiming for a fatal blow if at all possible.

Ravir wasn’t going to help me fight as that’s not what I’d prayed for from him. But his presence with me would probably divide their forces and attention which would be a huge advantage for me. I wasn’t worried in the slightest about Ravir taking any sort of damage. A mortal couldn’t kill a god without the right equipment and circumstances and unless the god allowed it, a mortal couldn’t hurt one either. The chances of one of the Sojar having a god-killing weapon _and_ being god-touched to allow them to use it was so small, it wasn’t even worth thinking about.

The Sojar said nothing as they split into two groups, their moves freakily coordinated even beyond being extremely familiar with each other in a fight. One group came at me and the other headed for Ravir. I caught his eye and smirked. This fight was about to go horribly, horribly wrong for the Sojar rushing Ravir. It was never, ever a wise move to attack a god without having a god-killing weapon in hand. The Sojar likely had no idea he was a god because he wasn’t letting any of his godhood show but they’d find that out soon enough on their own.

I dodged the slash of a halberd aimed for my head and rolled away from the morningstar swing that almost took out my knee. Morningstar Sojar was unfortunate enough to be positioned just right when I rolled for my ephemeral hand to spear up deep into his body, grab his intestines and yank them out his asshole. His shriek of agony was earsplitting and he was most definitely out of the fight. Having a high pain and damage threshold had nothing on sustaining that sort of injury. He wasn’t dead yet and it could take agonizing hours for him to die of the injury I’d caused. He wasn’t going to be a problem in this fight. I’d still keep out of grabbing distance just to be on the safe side.

I highly doubted Morningstar Sojar was one of the Sojar magic users either. He’d attacked with a heavy weapon and was a big, burly guy. Most of the magic using Sojar I’d encountered and gathered intel on were a lot less muscled and rarely used anything heavier than a light sword because they didn’t have the physical strength for it. Magic using Sojar were apparently a rare breed, something about the process of becoming a Sojar severely stunting that ability. The few that could competently use magic were smaller and slighter than the typical big and burly Sojar. There also weren’t a lot of them, thank all the gods.

I popped up and slashed at another Sojar, opening a deep but hardly immediately fatal wound on the Sojar’s arm. It made him drop the sword he was holding and would probably keep that form of attack from effectively being used on me. Ambidextrous fighters were not common. I’d still try to keep to the injured side of that Sojar to impede any attacks he tried to make on me.

My breath whooshed out of me when another Sojar caught me hard in the ribs with a fist nearly the size of my head and hard as a rock. I heard the crack and hot, sharp pain bloomed as a rib or two broke from the blow. I stumbled away trying to keep the six Sojar on me from surrounding me or leaving my now injured side open to attack. If they pounced on me as a group I was probably a dead man. Fortunately the room was huge and I had a lot of space to play with as well as the obstacles of the furniture in the room. Movement out of the corner of my eye had me glancing reflexively at Ravir as I moved to put a sofa between me and the Sojar on me.

Two Sojar brought heavy swords down in deadly arcs on Ravir, one on each side of him in an honestly beautifully coordinated move. The swords shattered like ancient cracked glass when they touched him leaving Ravir without a single mark and decidedly unimpressed with their synchronized attack. The Sojar surrounding him stared stupidly at him and I could see the confusion on their faces at what just happened.

“Die,” Ravir said, godly command in his voice.

The Sojar holding the remainder of their broken swords dropped to the floor with disturbing wet splats, a rapidly widening pool of blood under them as their flesh seemed to almost turn to jelly and slough off. Tightly controlled godhood suddenly surged into the room, smashing the six Sojar still surrounding Ravir into the stone floor with boggling force. Only the barest tendrils of his godhood reached me but it was still breath-stealing in its power. I was one hundred percent sure the Sojar surrounding Ravir were very, very dead because they were now roughly four inches thick with their insides squirting out from the weight of Ravir’s godhood like when you stepped on a grape. I was sure it wasn’t even anywhere near his full godhood but just a tiny fraction that he’d let loose.

“You making out alright there, Kheima?” Ravir asked in a conversational tone as if he was asking me what the weather was like. The feel of his godhood vanished as he spoke having done what he needed it to.

“I got this, Lord Ravir. I’ll yell if I need more help,” I shot back with a feral grin.

“As you wish. Don’t toy with them too long. I’m eager to claim your payment to me for my aid in your vengeance. I’m sure you’re aware that it’s not wise to keep a god waiting.”

It was immensely gratifying to see the “oh, shit,” moment light up the remaining Sojar’s eyes at Ravir’s words. That didn’t stop them from attacking me but it did make them nervous and off-their-mark after feeling that tiny scrap of Ravir’s godhood and seeing what it did to the Sojar that attacked him.

I was well used to the feel of godhood and probably had some sort of tolerance to it so I wasn’t put off by it. Ravir had focused his godhood on the ones attacking him but the eddies of his power had still lightly swirled through the room. I’d never felt the full breadth of Baba or Tatay’s godhood because I was mortal and being exposed to that much divine power would either crush me to death or make me explode. Maybe both at the same time. Dad was fine to wallow in Baba and Tatay’s full godhood but he was god-marked by both of them and had a drop of their power fused to his soul.

I used the Sojar’s distraction with Ravir’s godhood and shoved my ephemeral hand into the chest of the Sojar that should’ve been dead from the last time I’d done that simply because he was the closest target available to me. His heart was still crushed and there was a lot of fluid, likely blood, around it. He really should be dead and I frowned. I felt a flutter like a heartbeat on the side of my hand just as I was about to pull my hand back. I twisted my wrist and my eyes went wide. He had two hearts. I didn’t even know that was a thing.

I quickly squeezed his second heart, driving my claws through it, bursting it and finally killing him. It was entirely possible that there were a few more Sojar with double hearts wandering around as the Queen tried to get as many Sojar as possible off the men she held captive. Hell, some of the Sojar in front of me now could have double hearts for all I knew. I’d have to make sure any future heart kills of a Sojar took out both hearts if they happened to have two. Headshots seemed to be the best guaranteed fatal injury for a Sojar.

As I crushed the Sojar’s heart, again, I slashed deep into the inside of the thigh of the Sojar I’d sliced earlier, twisting my wrist to maximize the damage before jerking my kukri free. He swore and threw a wild punch at me with his uninjured arm as blood quickly darkened his pants. I jerked my head back, his fist grazing my jaw. The sudden move to the side made me hiss as I jostled the broken ribs on that side of my body.

The Sojar I’d cut went down on one knee, all the muscles of his inner thigh severed by my blow. I’d cut him to the bone and he was bleeding out but it would take several minutes for him to die from blood loss assuming he wasn’t some type of demon and able to regenerate. A lot could happen in a fight in several minutes. I knew enough about the Sojar to know that he’d ignore his fatal injury in favour of killing me before I could kill the Queen.

I moved back to stay out of range of the wounded Sojar. The four Sojar still on me followed but kept just out of reach of my ephemeral hand. None of them had a weapon that would allow them to keep out of range of my ephemeral hand yet still land a hit on me so we were at a bit of a stalemate at the moment. I felt that odd tingle in the back of my head again seconds before one of the Sojar rushed me on my injured side. My hand automatically snapped out into his brain, shredding it the second he was within range.

The other three Sojar immediately pounced on me in a coordinated attack. I managed to embed my kukri into the side of one of the Sojar, luckily cutting deep into his heart and taking him out of the fight. The sword of one of the Sojar pierced through my shoulder as I twisted sideways, pain flaring to life from the sword wound and my broken ribs. A few inches lower and the sword would’ve skewered my heart. Arjan’s amulet was working overtime and I was grateful for it. Unfortunately for the other Sojar attacking me from behind, the sword also caught him. The Sojar in front of me grinned viciously and pushed the blade deeper, pinning me to the Sojar behind me.

_Shit._

I couldn’t move away as the Sojar I was pinned to was bigger and heavier than me. The sword might’ve gone through something vital in the Sojar like his heart but if he had two of them like the one Sojar, it wouldn’t be an immediately fatal blow. It could still leave him plenty of time to do something fatal to me, like stab me through the heart. He could snap my neck, too, and while that wouldn’t kill me, it would incapacitate me for several hours as my body healed. If I was allowed to heal. Once I couldn’t defend myself there was nothing stopping the Sojar from destroying my heart or chopping off my head.

I tried to Gate across the room, away from the Sojar on me but nothing happened. I’d been pretty sure that wouldn’t work because the palace was protected from people Gating in or out randomly, but it cost me nothing to try. I slammed my ephemeral hand into the skull of the Sojar behind me, clawing his brain to shreds. I let go of my kukri which was still buried in a Sojar’s chest and pulled smaller knives from the folds of the fabric wrapped around my torso. The Sojar behind me wasn’t a threat anymore, the Sojar with my kukri buried in him was dead, too, and the Sojar in front of me couldn’t use his primary weapon because it was skewered through two people unless he pulled it free.

The Sojar behind me started to fall backward. I yelled in pain when the Sojar in front of me wrenched the sword free and quickly stepped back just out of reach before I could grab him with my ephemeral hand. I was bleeding a lot from the shoulder wound but if I didn’t jostle it too much in the next few minutes the wound would start to close. It would take a good hour of utter stillness to fully heal but once I dealt with this final Sojar that would be easy enough to do.

“The other Sojar that are left are coming. I know who and what you are. The Queen had us look for you and your father for years. She wants you alive if possible and I understand why now. The medic said it was possible that you’re not sterile because you didn’t go through the process to be a true Sojar. The Queen wants Sojar off you and what the Queen wants, it is our duty to provide.”

“That’s not going to happen. It’ll be a level of bad you can’t even comprehend if the Queen tries to keep me here to breed. If she has me killed, well let’s just say that there will be a level of godly smiting going on that has never before been seen in the world.”

“You think Lord Ravir would avenge your death to that degree? You’re delusional,” the Sojar laughed. “You made a deal with him for help and not paying up would hardly be worth godly smiting on any scale.”

“True, he wouldn’t care one way or another as I’m not a worshiper of his and we’ve only just met. I’m sure he’ll be disappointed that our deal wasn’t fulfilled but no, it’s not him your people would need to fear. Lord Malachite, God of Stone and Crystals, and Lord Ji-Sun, God of Carnal Desire, Fertility and Love, are my adoptive fathers. Lord Rhas-Khan, God of the Abyss, is my grandfather and Lord Hylocereus, Elder God of Mysteries and Oracle of the Gods is my great-grandfather. They all love me very much and would be really unhappy should anything happen to me. Throw in a god-marked Mage-born Fatebender, that would be Grandpa Eilam and Grandpa Rhas-Khan’s husband, and there would be so much bad raining down on this kingdom, it would probably be a barren crater for thousands of years to come,” I said with the biggest shit-eating grin on my face. Sometimes playing the god card was fun.

“Liar,” the Sojar said in a dismissive tone.

“Kheima speaks the truth of his family,” Ravir said from where he’d taken a seat in a plush chair to watch me work. “I gave my aid to him when he prayed for that as I am the God of Vengeance and Justice and the dispensation of those things are my wheelhouse not that of any of the gods in his family.”

Unease flowed through the Sojar’s eyes. I might try to bluff my way out of a bad situation with a wild story of godly retribution but there was absolutely no reason for Ravir to lie by backing up my story. The Sojar also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ravir was a god. The Sojar seemed caught in indecision between carrying out the desires of the Queen to capture or kill me and his utter need to keep the Queen alive, which wouldn’t be a thing with four pissed off gods descending on the kingdom if I were to be captured or killed.

I saw my opening as his attention on me wavered. I charged at him and drove my ephemeral hand into his head. The motion made the sword wound in my shoulder bleed more but I didn’t care. I needed to end this now before reinforcements arrived which could literally be any moment now. The Sojar went rigid at the touch of my hand on his mind. I ripped from him the number of Sojar left in the palace and where they were. I jerked from him the location of the medic and where the Sojar going through the processes to become full Sojar were. I violently rifled through his mind snatching every scrap of information I thought could be even mildly useful in putting an end to the Queen and her reign before destroying his brain.

“That was quite the show. I’m impressed and I don’t impress easily,” Ravir said as he rose from his seat.

“Thanks. I trained under Oleander for several years and he said I have a real talent for killing. He doesn’t look it but he’s lethal poetry in motion when it’s time to end his target. I’ve gone with him a few times when he’s been sent to assassinate someone and what he does on mission makes what I did here look like amateur hour. I’m absolutely sure he wouldn’t have gotten his ribs broken or taken a sword through the shoulder unless he intended for those things to happen.”

“Starry-eyed over your teacher?” Ravir asked with a small smile.

“Nope. Complete truth. He was an assassin in the Immortal Army for pretty much a century and a half before I was even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. Nearly two centuries worth of experience in killing for a living makes him unbelievably good.

“The Sojar I just finished gave up the information that there’s twenty-seven Sojar left. That includes five Sojar in various stages of training and four babies that are going through the process to become a Sojar, leaving eighteen full Sojar who are probably going to be arriving at that door in five minutes or less. I fully intend to kill all of them, babies included, because if I leave even one Sojar alive, they will hunt me until one of us is dead out of pure raging vengeance at killing the Queen. The likelihood is also high that they’d hunt down the men of the carrel as well and I can’t allow that. I don’t leave loose ends that could come back to bite me in the ass. That’s unprofessional.”

“This is your vengeance, Kheima. You don’t need to explain or justify anything to me. I know demons heal at an accelerated rate but is that going to be enough to allow you to take on the Sojar you say are coming with the injuries you have?”

I grimaced. “Not really, no. I need to get the bleeding to stop from the sword wound but every time I move my arm, I disrupt the healing and open the wound again. I’m going to bar the main door, bring the men of the carrel in here to deal with the Queen and bar the door to the carrel. I’m not fantastic at magic like Kyrieleison is but I did plan ahead and have him make a little something for me in case I needed to buy time.”

Ravir dipped his head in acknowledgement. He made no offer to help me nor did I expect him to. Our deal was for him to get rid of the protective barrier to grant me access to the carrel and ultimately the Queen’s chambers, which he’d done. I could probably ask him to help me more but a stubborn streak miles wide within me refused to let the words past my lips. I would get my vengeance my way.

I swore softly under my breath as I dropped the heavy wooden beam into the brackets on the main door, securing it. Blood dripped from my shoulder wound as I tore open the delicate healing flesh and my ribs screamed hot agony at me. I grit my teeth and ignored the pain as best as I could as I pulled a palm-sized seal from the folds of my top.

Kyrieleison was the sweetest, gentlest looking person I knew and it wasn’t just because he was my brother and I loved him that I thought that. People never suspected him of being a staggeringly powerful mage because he looked like a casual, friendly punch would damn near kill him. It would also make the person who punched him feel like they’d just stomped on a wounded kitten while crushing a butterfly in their hand. Looks were certainly deceiving with Kyrieleison. He was a demon, very hardy and he had a surprisingly vicious temper that once set off was tough to rein back in.

I placed the seal on the door and spoke the ritual words to activate it. I hissed at the sharp magical draw from the powerful ward and stepped back shaking my hand free of the almost painful tingles setting the ward had caused. I was a decent magic user but nowhere near Kyrieleison’s level and he hadn’t even come into the full force of his magic yet.

On my way to the door to the carrel I recalled my kukri to my hand, stopped by the Sojar I’d sliced deeply and the one whose intestines I’d pulled out of his ass and decapitated both before sheathing the long blade. I called the men of the carrel into the room telling them they needed to hurry. They approached cautiously and far slower than I liked but I couldn’t blame them. No doubt they’d heard the sounds of battle and as soon as they were close enough to the room, they’d see the results of what I’d done as well as what Ravir had done. I was used to the death and carnage of a battle. They probably weren’t.

The Queen was stirring, a soft groan sounding from her throat as she tried to sit up. I could’ve knocked her out again but I, and probably the men of the carrel, wanted her awake and reasonably aware of what was happening to her so that wasn’t an option. I pulled some thin yet strong cord from the folds of my top and quickly bound her hands to her feet. She wasn’t going to be going anywhere soon. I wasn’t worried about her using any magic as to the best of my knowledge, she didn’t know any aside from really basic bullshit stuff that wouldn’t help her at all in her current situation.

With the men of the carrel in the Queen’s chambers, I shut the door to the carrel and barred that one as well, setting the other ward Kyrieleison had given me. I sat against the base of the door and leaned my head back; closing my eyes and hoping that a few minutes of not moving would speed up my healing so I could at least move my arm a bit without it setting the wound to bleeding again.

From the time I’d opened the door to the Queen’s chambers to the moment I was now taking a little breather, no more than five minutes had passed. I grinned to myself. I was doing damn good. Fine, I had gotten an unplanned hand from Ravir in dealing with the Sojar guarding the Queen but whatever.

The Queen was now awake and screaming all kinds of demands to be set free at the men of her carrel. They didn’t budge an inch. She began screeching about the punishment they’d get for not obeying her which really wasn’t helping to encourage the men to set her free. Her back was to me and Ravir and I didn’t think she remembered seeing me just yet. She had taken a hard blow to the head when I knocked her out.

She finally noticed that several of her Sojar were headless, two were more or less puddles of fleshy goo and four of them were very obviously crushed to death. She twisted in place and saw me. Just to be an asshole, I waved at her with my ephemeral hand before giving her the finger.

“Release me at once and bow before me! Obey your Queen!” she demanded. “Obey me and I might offer you leniency.”

“Yeah, no. You’re not my Queen. I’m here to kill you for what you did to me and my Dad. He says you’re not worth the energy to plot revenge on but we have a little difference of opinion there. I don’t think you’re worth anything in all honesty but I deeply desire vengeance for trying to kill me. I’m going to kill the rest of your Sojar, too. Not only that, I’m going to help these men kill the Sojar babies you forced on them.”

“You can’t kill me. I’m the Queen. I’m your mother. I forbid it,” she said in a tone heavy with royal command that probably made everybody jump to obey her. It didn’t mean shit to me.

“No, you’re not my mother. You’re just a rapist that happened to contribute to my creation. I have wonderful, loving fathers that are my real parents. You are simply a vile creature that needs to be eradicated for the good of everyone and I volunteered for the task.”

“You can’t kill the unborn Sojar without killing the host. The Sojar can’t be born from these men without first receiving a dose of venom only I produce as the Queen. You kill me, you kill them because they can’t deliver without the venom,” the Queen cackled.

The men looked to me as one, fear, anger and a tiny spark of hope in their eyes. They already knew of my godly connections. If anyone was going to be able to help them get rid of the Sojar they carried and still allow them to live, it would be me. This next piece of information to drop on the Queen was going to be very sweet.

“Actually, no, that’s not true at all because of me and the people I’m related to and know. Do you want to know why you could never find me and Dad? He took us to the Abyss. Once there, he called for Baba to come get us and begged for refuge in the Abyss. Baba is Lord Malachite, God of Stone and Crystals and the son of Lord Rhas-Khan, God of the Abyss. Dad and Baba were in a relationship before you kidnapped Dad. Baba adopted me when Dad agreed to bear his god-mark and became his husband. Four years later, Dad and Baba married Tatay. Tatay is Lord Ji-Sun, God of Carnal Desire, Love and Fertility. I’m the adopted son of two gods, grandson to another god and great-grandson to an Elder God. I grew up in the Abyss and at the palace of Lord Ji-Sun.

“I know a fair number of gods rather well for a mortal. One of those gods is Lord Kai-Wen, God of Healing and Disease. I’m going to ask Tatay if he can help these men because he’s the God of Fertility and if he can’t, I’ll ask Lord Kai-Wen to help. Lord Kai-Wen is an asshole but he’s fair. The men will have to pay some sort of price to Lord Kai-Wen for ridding them of the Sojar they carry but I don’t think any of them will mind regardless of the price.”

The men of the carrel nodded and then jumped when there was a furious pounding on the main door to the chambers and shouts from what I assumed were the Sojar coming to defend the Queen. The Queen grinned victoriously.

“That’s a very pretty but unlikely tale you just spun. Shame on you for giving these pathetic hosts a grain of hope that they’d be able to avoid birthing my Sojar. Those are my Sojar on the other side of that door and you’re all going to die. Not immediately as I want the Sojar in the current hosts but once I have them, I’ll have no use for rebellious hosts. Or maybe I will keep some of them alive because it’ll amuse me to know how much they’d like to die but can’t because I won’t allow it. It won’t take long for my Sojar to break through that door,” she sneered.

“Not likely unless you have some incredibly strong magic users among your Sojar, which I’m confident you don’t. My little brother, Kyrieleison, made the wards holding the doors shut. He’s not Mage-born but he’s as close as you can get to that without being one. Your Sojar are not getting through either warded door anytime soon. You’d need at least a Mage-born to break his ward and I know you don’t have one in your kingdom because I asked Greatpa Hylocereus if you did and he said no. Since he’s the Elder God that brings them into being, he’d know.”

“You lie. Spinning a tale to be even more fantastical doesn’t make it true,” the Queen hissed.

“Kheima speaks the truth,” Ravir said from where he was casually leaning against the wall near me.

The queen turned fully and eyed Ravir with calculating interest. I saw it the second she decided that she was going to add him to her carrel. She still didn’t get it that her life was measured in a matter of minutes. She still thought she was in charge and that everybody would be subject to her cruel whims. Oh, this was going to be so good.

“You’re unusual looking. Rather pretty in a lean, predatory sort of way. I will see you pregnant with one of my Sojar before this week is done. It’s almost a pity that I can’t breed my men together to create a Sojar. You and my failed Sojar would probably make a lovely, reed-thin, delicate looking Sojar. Possibly even one that will retain the ability to do magic. I’d even be willing to overlook it having that disgusting extra arm if it had an interesting enough ability.”

The men of the carrel gasped and moved back from the Queen. I snickered even as my cheeks burned with a blush. She was a sadistic, horrible individual but she did have a good eye. A child between Ravir and I would probably be reed-thin and delicate looking considering we were both tall, skinny people and Dad was tall and skinny, too. That weird tingle pulsed through my ass again at the random thought of carrying Ravir’s child.

“I am Ravir, God of Vengeance and Justice. While I do agree that a child between me and Kheima would most likely look utterly stunning, we’ve only just met. It’s rather presumptuous to assume, even for a god, that he would want to bear my child after meeting for the first time less than an hour ago.”

I felt Ravir set some of his godhood free over the Queen. She cried out in surprise when her body was shoved to the floor and wheezed as she tried to breathe. A few of the men wobbled and leaned on the others, reacting to just the barest wisps of his godhood brushing over them. They moved even further away from the Queen and the influence of Ravir’s godhood.

“Please don’t kill her for her insolence to you, Lord Ravir. The men of her carrel and I desire the vengeance of killing her for what she’s done,” I said.

“Vengeance is yours, Kheima,” Ravir said with a small nod at me. “If you decide to share that vengeance with others that is your business. Our deal will still stand regardless. I was only impressing on this creature that she is in the presence of god and that it is extremely unwise to annoy said god.”

Ravir pulled the power of his godhood back within himself until I could only feel it if I concentrated really hard and he was standing less than three feet from me. The Queen was staring at Ravir with abject fear in her eyes. She finally understood that her life was going to be over soon and that there was little to nothing she could do about it.

I gently poked at the wound to my shoulder, pleased when the skin held without tearing although it still hurt a lot. I’d still need to be careful to avoid opening it up again for the next thirty minutes or so but I’d be more than fine to kill the Queen. Especially with the men of the carrel taking some literal stabs at her as well. The broken ribs were starting to mend, too, but those would take longer. I might need to either call on Kai-Wen for healing or maybe Kulfi if Kai-Wen was a dick about the price he’d ask. I could still join Ravir in his bed with broken ribs but that meant being careful and could suck some of the pleasure of the encounter away from both of us. He might be willing to wait until I healed but I wasn’t.

I stood and went to the Queen’s bedroom, confident that I would find some knives there since she seemed to have a real fondness for them. I didn’t have to look hard to find what I was after and went back into the other room. I approached the Queen and delicately slid my fingers into her brain. She froze, unable to move but aware of everything. I dropped the knives to the floor.

“If you want to stab her or slash her, go ahead and do it. Everybody who wants a turn gets it. That being said, nobody aim for something fatal right off the mark. You all deserve to see her fear of you before she dies. Once everyone that wants to cut her has had their turn, then it’ll be a knife party and you can all stab away if you want to.

“The only caution I will advise is that killing someone is shockingly easy especially if it’s someone you hate. Living with what you’ve done may not be the same story for you. I’m a soldier and an assassin in the Immortal Army. Killing is what I do and I’m very, very good at it. Even so, there have been some kills I regret having to make as part of a mission. Nobody will think any less of you if you decide not to do anything to the Queen to end her life and simply watch others take it.”

Keeping my fingers in her head, I untied the cord binding her and tucked it back in the folds of my top. The Queen was furious and frightened and I loved knowing she was scared because of what I’d orchestrated. I wasn’t surprised in the least when all of the men stepped forward to pick up a knife. There were more men than knives but sharing a knife wasn’t going to be a problem at all. The first man to step forward was the very pregnant and wan looking one who said he knew this pregnancy would be his last.

“She can’t move?” he asked as he stared at her with utter loathing.

“Not unless I take my hand out of her head and that’s only going to happen when she’s dead. She can still feel, hear and see everything. She simply can’t move or speak as I’ve frozen her muscles.”

“Good. Can you make it so she can speak? I wouldn’t mind hearing her beg for me to stop just like every one of us begged her to stop doing the things she did to us.”

“She’ll say some really nasty shit if she can speak,” I warned.

“I don’t care. I want to hear her scream in terror and pain. I’m confident in saying the other men want that, too.”

The men of the carrel nodded their heads. I released my grip on her ability to speak. The Queen immediately started calling all of the men names and threatening dire bodily harm if they didn’t immediately cease what they were doing and let her go. He surprised me a little as he knelt heavily next to her and carefully cut away the fine clothes she was wearing.

She screeched at him, calling him even more names and threatening some truly creative punishments that she’d do to him if he continued. He studied her for a moment before looking at me, a malicious light entering his eyes. All the casual cruelty of the Queen was about to be paid back in ways she’d never thought possible. I could see it in his eyes.

“Can you make her ovipositor emerge? I want to wound her favoured instrument of torture.”

The Queen screamed when I forced her ovipositor to present. It didn’t hurt her in the least to do that but she was flat out terrified of what the man kneeling between her thighs was going to do to it. Only the Queen had an ovipositor and apparently if a Queen was de-throned but allowed to live, her ovipositor was cut off to forever remove the possibility of gaining the throne again.

The ovipositor was roughly ten inches long and I could probably easily wrap my fingers around it as it wasn’t all that thick. The end of it was very narrow and had what looked like overlapping plates that came to a sharp point at the last inch or so. The man grabbed the ovipositor and squeezed it at the base of the plates. The end opened like a flower unfurling revealing several needle-like things inside.

Dad had told me what happened to him when the Queen impregnated him when I was older and pressed him for information. My balls drew up a little when I thought about having those needle things driven into my balls like he’d had done to him. Dad said the Queen hadn’t been gentle at all either and relished the pain she caused him.

“This is for every time you ravaged my body to implant your Sojar in me,” the man said he thrust the knife into the opening of the ovipositor and twisted it back and forth.

The Queen screamed so loud it actually hurt my ears. Blood began to flow and I saw several of the needle spikes in the puddle of blood forming on the floor between her legs, the knife having either severed the spikes or broken them off. The man smiled in satisfaction and heaved himself to his feet, making way for the next man. The following man took the knife, knelt down and sawed off the plated tip of the ovipositor making the Queen scream again. He handed off the knife to the next man who hacked off another piece of the ovipositor.

The pounding on the door increased to a furious level and made it rattle and shake ominously but the door held. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I’d said nothing was getting through that door unless there was a borderline Mage-born magic user in the palace.

An unspoken agreement between the men seemed to have been forged where they all hacked off a piece of the ovipositor. I could completely understand that given what they’d all been through because of that bit of the Queen’s anatomy. The Queen was now hysterical; crying, screaming and alternating between begging and demanding they stop. The men ignored her but they all smiled viciously and with great satisfaction as they took their literal piece of flesh from her.

While the men hacked away the Queen’s proof of her monarchy, I browsed through her mind, plucking out the things that I thought could be useful. I was surprised to find that the Sojar shared a mental link with each other and the Queen if they were close enough. It wasn’t a huge range and wasn’t exactly words, but it could be a critical advantage in a fight. That might’ve been the cause of the odd tingle I’d felt in the back of my skull earlier. I wasn’t a Sojar but I’d been implanted into Dad with the intention of becoming one.

The Queen had a long standing intimate relationship with the medic who was actually her younger sister. I was a little appalled that the Queen had personally removed her sister’s ovipositor as soon as she ascended the throne but not all that surprised at her actions either. The Queen loved her sister to a very unhealthy, obsessive degree but didn’t entirely trust her. The Queen had borne children with men she deemed acceptable but none of the children or men who’d gotten her pregnant were alive now. The Queen had killed the females when she felt they threatened her position as Queen and the men were seen as nothing more than expendable means to an end.

If the child had been unfortunate enough to be born male and she found him pleasing to her eye, she used him just as she used the men of her carrel and bred a Sojar on him as soon as possible. The child, for the boy was still a child when that was done to him, rarely survived the birth of the Sojar, his young body nowhere near strong enough to endure the pregnancy or trauma of the birth.

I’d never been so certain that a target of mine needed to die.

The men of the carrel made several more rounds of attacks on the Queen. If I hadn’t had my fingers in her brain she would’ve passed out from the pain and blood loss before they’d even finished slicing up her ovipositor. Even with my control though, she was slipping away just due to blood loss and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop that. Not that I would’ve.

“She doesn’t have long left. Minutes at best. Decide quickly what you want to do. Group stabbing? Elect someone to stab her through the heart or slit her throat? I’m going to crush her brain so do whatever you want while she can still understand what’s happening,” I said.

The men murmured together quickly before they approached as a group, knives out. A few of them grabbed the weapons the Sojar had carried and readied those. They surrounded her and looked at me.

“The abomination you tried to kill has stripped away everything you clutched tight and ended your life with the help of some of the men you’ve abused so horribly. I’m going to kill the rest of the Sojar and I’m going to kill your sister for her part in helping your reign of terror continue for as long as it has. Vengeance is not only mine but that of all the men of your carrel that you abused, tortured and killed over the centuries. I’m going to recommend to Lord Rai-Sui that he burn your soul from existence because nothing as foul as you should ever have the chance at life again.”

Utter terror filled her eyes. I nodded at the men and they descended with their weapons, stabbing her wherever they could reach. I waited until the last possible second before squishing her brain between my fingers, killing her. I withdrew my hand and stepped back as I watched the men continue to stab her. I was fairly sure they knew she was dead but they obviously still had a good bit of anger to work out of their system. If reducing the former Queen to a ragged piece of flesh was how they wanted to do that I wasn’t going to stop them. After several minutes of savagery to the Queen’s corpse, I raised my voice to get the attention of the men of the carrel.

“I need to deal with the Sojar still living. I’m going to open the door to do that. There should be eighteen Sojar on the other side just itching to kill me. They’ll probably want to kill all of you, too, as you’ve all got quite a lot of literal blood on your hands. It would be in your best interests to go into the Queen’s bedchambers and hide there until I tell you it’s safe to come out.”

One of the men who wasn’t a Pepsinae held a sword like he knew what to do with it and stepped forward. He wasn’t visibly pregnant but he had a multitude of fresh bruises all over his body that suggested to me that he’d probably done something to have the Queen order him beaten. Then again, the Queen hadn’t seemed to need a reason to torture the men of the carrel other than her own sadistic pleasure at hurting them.

“I was recently kidnapped by that piece of shit while on leave from the army. I’d been on my way home to see my wife and kids after months away when I was grabbed. Undoubtedly I’m listed as a deserter now since I’ve been here over a month and long past my leave. My family is probably going crazy with worry. I’m worried about them and how they’re surviving. I’ll help you take down the Sojar.”

A Pepsinae man with a gently rounded belly stepped forward and tugged on the collar around his neck. “If you can get this magic suppression collar off me I’ll help, too. I’m a decent magic user. Mostly the hearth and home type of things but you can do a fair bit of damage with certain cantrips if you get creative with them. I don’t know any really high level spells but I can help make the Sojar who cast spells have a hard time doing it. I can screw with the non-casters, too.”

Ravir snapped his fingers and all the collars on the men turned to fine dust and sifted to the floor.

One of the heavily pregnant men grabbed the halberd that was still on the floor. “I used to be a guard here in the palace. I stupidly thought I was safe from the Queen sticking me in the carrel because I was a guard and I know I’m not the type of man she usually fancies to add to her carrel. One of the Sojar magic users mentioned in passing that he’d like to ride my ass. The Queen indulged him and found it amusing to watch a small man fuck me when I very obviously hated it but couldn’t do anything to stop it. I haven’t seen the little prick yet and I’d really like to cut off his dick and feed it to him before I gut him. After that Sojar was done with me the Queen thought she could get an exceptionally physically strong Sojar off me. The bitch let the little dick keep right on fucking me even after she did this to me. I want him dead.”

“I’m not going to stop or tell any of you that you can’t fight the Sojar. They are highly trained soldiers, which all of you know, so if you don’t have any fighting skills you’re going to be putting your life in danger. I can’t watch out for you or defend you because there’s eighteen of them on the other side of that door and I’ll have my hands pretty full trying to keep my own hide in one piece. You’re free of the Queen now so you get to decide what to do with your life.”

I waited for the men to decide what they were going to do. One of the other men grabbed the morningstar, hefting it and taking a few practice swings with it with some level of competence. The rest of the men nodded and hurried to the Queen’s bedroom shutting the door behind them. I walked to the main door to the chambers, lifted the wooden beam, unsheathed my kukri, stepped well away from the door and then dismissed the ward with the word Kyrieleison had told me to use.

There was a moment where I thought that perhaps the Sojar had left to try getting in another way. Then the door was flung open, slamming into the wall. The Sojar in front tucked and rolled into the room. I caught one of them in the spine by pure luck with my kukri. His momentum yanked the Kukri out of my hand. I lashed out at another with my ephemeral hand and while I only caught him a glancing blow to the head, it was enough to claw through parts of his brain making him stagger drunkenly into the room before crashing into a table and dropping to the floor. He’d be a lower risk as a combatant with some of his motor skills now very compromised so I ignored him for the time being.

The bruised man with the sword laid a solid blow to a Sojar, drawing his attention as well as the attention of another Sojar. The men with the halberd and morningstar were occupied with their own Sojar and seemed to be doing fine at parrying the first few blows and landing some of their own although none were killing blows for either side. One of the Sojar with a thin sword on his hip began to gesture, quickly followed by two others. The first one to start casting something yelped suddenly as a small hole appeared under one of his feet and he was knocked off-balance, stumbling into the other two casters beside him and ruining their spells as well.

While the Sojar had us outnumbered, they hadn’t expected to fight anyone other than me and they most certainly hadn’t expected any of the men of the carrel to join in the fray. In an almost disappointingly short time the Sojar were dead and the worst thing that happened to us was the bruised man getting a nasty but non-lethal sword slash across his ribs and the magic user taking a hard knock to the head, dazing and probably concussing him. Just to be sure that the Sojar would all stay dead, I decapitated all the corpses.

I rapped on the door to the Queen’s bedroom and told the men it was safe to come out. When they were all back in the main room standing among the bodies of the Queen and her Sojar, a look of intense relief passed through all of them. I told them again that they could stay or go as they wished but that my work wasn’t quite done. They chose to stay, retreating back into the Queen’s bedroom so they weren’t waiting amidst nearly thirty bodies and the gore slicking the floor.

All in all, I was rather pleased with the way my mission was going. There was still a slim chance that things could go horribly wrong. There were no regular guards in the part of the castle the Queen lived in as she didn’t trust their loyalty. That worked out massively in my favour as it meant that it was unlikely that there would be anyone to stop me since nobody outside of the Queen’s quarters would know what happened for some time.

Servants did enter the Queen’s quarters to clean and bring food to her, the Sojar and the carrel but there was a set schedule for that. None of the servants dared to break the schedule out of fear of the Queen and whatever punishment she came up with for disobeying her. Depending on her mood, death for the servant could be on the table as a punishment.

I’d made sure to begin my attack between the time periods when servants were allowed in to the Queen’s quarters and I knew I had a two and a half hour window before servants began entering to deliver lunch. I didn’t have a lot of time left on the clock to complete my mission especially after letting the men of the carrel help me kill the Queen but I didn’t regret that decision one bit. I’d be getting a little close to when servants would arrive but now that the main part of my mission was done with the Queen and the majority of the Sojar dead, the rest should be easy-peasy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

I made my way to the training area and nursery of the Sojar, Ravir following along behind me. I gave the teachers and nannies the option of leaving, telling them that the Queen was dead and showing them the tip of her ovipositor as proof that she wasn’t Queen anymore. I told them I was going to kill the last of the Sojar and if they tried to stop me, I’d kill them, too. Out of the dozen people, four stayed. I dispatched them as quickly and mercifully as possible. They’d done nothing more than be stupidly loyal to an insane Queen which was regrettable.

The medic was easy to find in her workshop. I’d thought I’d have to break down the door or something since I was sure she’d know something was going on but it was open and I simply walked in. While she initially seemed surprised to see me, there was a sort of defeated yet relieved air to her when she faced me. I didn’t doubt for a second she knew who I was. Having a third arm was a pretty distinctive thing you didn’t see every day and Dad said she’d been in the room when he delivered me. I didn’t think she was a stupid woman so chances were good that she knew why I was there or was making a good educated guess. He eyes flicked briefly to Ravir but dismissed him as not important when he simply lounged against the wall and watched me approach the medic.

“The Queen is dead isn’t she?” she asked even though her tone said she already knew the answer.

“Yes, she is. I’m cleaning up loose ends,” I replied as I watched her for any potential threatening movements.

“I thought it would be your father who killed her but I suppose it makes just as much sense for you to have done it. Demons carry a grudge like no other although I’d say it’s deserved in this instance. She’s really dead? You’re absolutely sure?” the medic asked.

“Not even if she could regenerate like a demon could she come back from what was done to her. The men of the carrel helped me kill her because they asked and I felt they were owed that. On a low guess I’d say she was stabbed probably fifty times before she died. I pulped her brain and after she was dead, the men of the carrel continued to stab her until I’m not even sure her corpse is still in one piece.”

The medic nodded as if she expected to hear something like that. “You’re going to kill me now, aren’t you?” she asked with a resigned sigh.

“Yep. I’m going to shove the fingers of my ephemeral hand into your head and crush your brain like an overripe fruit. It’s an easy, guaranteed kill for every species I’ve encountered so far and I want to make sure you’re dead when I’m done with you. You helped the Queen torture the men of the carrel, my Dad included, and did nothing to oppose her. You share guilt with her for the horrible deeds she did.

“Yes, she was the Queen and your sister but you had opportunities over the centuries to take her out. I saw what was in her mind when I had my fingers dug into her brain. She knew there were times when you could’ve killed her, even wanted to kill her, but didn’t jump at the opportunity. She didn’t fully trust you and sometimes thought you were playing some sort of long game to de-throne her but she also loved you more than anything, obsessively really, and couldn’t bring herself to kill you.”

The medic sighed and toyed with the end of the tie of her robe. She seemed oddly weary. I’d expected some sort of protest or resistance from her. Pleading that she was only doing what her Queen demanded of her. Instead there was resigned acceptance. It was weird.

“I couldn’t kill her either. She was my sister. I loved her, too, but not in the way she wanted me to. I won’t make excuses for my actions. I did horrible things at her direction and did further horrible things to satisfy my curiosity because I knew I could get away with it. Undoubtedly I deserve what I’m about to get. Funny thing is that I _was_ playing a long game to de-throne her. I accept my death at your hands but in light of what you’ve told me about my impending death I’d ask one thing of you since I’m assuming you’ll find out anyway when you kill me.

“I had a baby in secret two years ago. She wasn’t my first and I managed to hide my pregnancy and the birth from not only the Queen but everybody, which was no easy task. I sent Raina to some people I trust explicitly within days of her birth. They are Pepsinae but don’t live in the kingdom in an effort to keep Raina safe from the reach of the Queen until she comes of age to challenge her for the throne. That was my long game. I wanted a better Queen on the throne. Hell, I’d settle for one that wasn’t casually homicidal and borderline psychotic.

“I beg you not to kill my daughter. She’s truly innocent in all this. The Queen has killed two children I birthed before Raina as well as one she killed before it even had the chance to come into this world and draw breath. The first was because I hadn’t asked for permission and the death of my child was my punishment. The other was because she was the child of a male the Queen knew I cared deeply for. Despite the child not being born with an ovipositor and of no threat to the Queen’s place on the throne she was enraged that I had a child with someone I loved that wasn’t her. She had the father killed, too. She claimed the third killing was an unfortunate accident caused by an unbalanced Sojar that attacked me but I never believed that.

“I desperately don’t want Raina to die. If you don’t want someone related to the Queen by blood on the throne you can still let her live. As much as it pains me and turns my stomach to suggest it, cut off her ovipositor as she can’t be Queen without it. As long as she has it, the throne will call to her and she may be driven to do unspeakable things to have it. If she tries to challenge for the throne after another queen has been found or born and claimed it. That’ll start a long, bloody war and the people of this kingdom don’t need that.

“If you leave her intact, be her Regent until she’s of age. Only one of royal blood who cannot sit on the throne may be the Regent of the Queen. If you don’t, her ovipositor will be cut from her at best or she’ll be killed to allow a new queen of a different bloodline to take the throne unopposed. You are of royal blood and with my death and presumably the deaths of all the Queen’s Sojar, you’re the only one left aside from Raina with royal blood of this line. As a male you can’t take the throne. Please, I beg of you. Show mercy to an innocent and spare my baby.”

Well, shit.

I looked at Ravir where he leaned against the wall watching me, curiosity in his eyes about what I’d do. He obviously wasn’t going to be any help as he observed my vengeance play out. I needed advice. I didn’t know what to do and hadn’t even contemplated that a royal child not a Sojar was going to be a thing I’d need to worry about. I wanted to ask my fathers but I also didn’t want to get them involved in this. I wasn’t quite ready to be on the receiving end of the ass chewing that I was sure would come.

I honestly didn’t care one way or the other who sat on the damn Pepsinae throne. That wasn’t part of my vengeance quest. There hadn’t even been the barest hint of a whisper of a possible future queen from this bloodline from any of the information I’d gathered and I’d been very, very thorough.

On the one hand, I had the opportunity to effectively end the line to the throne by killing the child. Technically I was of royal blood but I’d need to have a girl that was also born with an ovipositor in order to try for a throne I didn’t want. As far as I was concerned the odds were small that would happen especially since Chimeric Demons always bred true.

Killing the child didn’t sit right with me. Fine, I’d killed the Sojar babies and children but that was a necessity and if I hadn’t done it, the palace guards would’ve because the Sojar were never allowed to survive the death of the Queen that spawned them. It was actually dangerous to keep the Sojar of the former Queen around according to all I’d been able to learn.

It seemed wrong to me to cut off the ovipositor. I understood why that was a thing but it seemed unnecessarily cruel. Doing that wouldn’t necessarily end this royal line either as the child didn’t need the ovipositor to reproduce, only to create Sojar. But if I didn’t do that and left the child to grow up with the people she was with, I could certainly see that starting a war between factions of who was to sit on the throne. I knew long, bloody wars had been started over far less. I didn’t hate the Pepsinae people; just the now dead Queen and it would bother me to know I’d inadvertently been the cause of a war. A little civil unrest as the scramble was on to find a new queen was one thing. Full-scale civil war was a completely different thing.

Being Regent to the future queen wouldn’t have even crossed my mind in a thousand years. I knew dick-squat about running a kingdom. Hell, I wasn’t even of a high enough rank in the Immortal Army to run my own large scale assassination operation. How was I going to make decisions and policy for an entire kingdom when I wasn’t even ready to head something like that?

I chewed on my lip and thought furiously. I sighed when I couldn’t see a clear way out of the mess I’d gotten myself involved in except for asking for help from my family. I just needed to ask the right family member.

_“Greatpa Hylocereus, can you come give me some advice right now. It’s really urgent and I’d appreciate it a whole lot if you didn’t say anything to Dad, Baba or Tatay about this.”_

I tried not to fidget as I waited for Hylocereus to respond. If he was busy he’d tell me and I’d have to figure something else out. I had no idea what that would be but I’d jump that raging torrent when I had to and not a moment sooner.

The medic shrieked when Hylocereus appeared. She scrambled backwards stumbling over a stool and landing on her ass. I couldn’t entirely blame her for her reaction. Hylocereus was easily recognizable as a god and he was very large, impressive and awe inspiring when first seeing him. His upper body wasn’t overly big but the snake tail that started at his hips instead of legs was easily wider than my torso and probably close to twenty feet long. He also had wickedly long claws on his fingers and a black, deadly stinger on his tail tip that could actually kill another god if he envenomated them. His eyes were always closed around mortals because looking into his eyes revealed the mysteries of the universes and immediately drove mortals stark raving mad. I walked right up to him and hugged him, being careful of my still healing ribs.

“What do you need my little Figling?” said Hylocereus as he lightly hugged me back and planted a doting kiss on my forehead.

“Advice,” I answered. “I’m neck-deep in it and I think I’m sinking fast.”

Hylocereus looked over my shoulder. “Ravir. You’re here for Kheima’s vengeance. Excellent. You feel the fettering, too. You don’t have to accept it if you don’t wish it. Know that this gift will not be offered again though. It is exclusive to Kheima.”

“Hylocereus,” Ravir said with a respectful head nod. “Yes, I can feel it. It was unexpected to say the least. It’s more comforting and settling than I thought it would be.”

“You saw this outcome, Greatpa? Wait, that was a stupid question. Of course you saw this outcome,” I said with a little frown.

“It was one of many although the most likely one given other things that had gone before. I thought this one would be the best suited one for all the ones involved.” Hylocereus faced Ravir before speaking again.

“Ravir, you’ve waited patiently for a very long time even for a god for what you’ve desired and needed. I could’ve arranged for you to have what you seek millennia ago but Kheima is the one to give you all that you wish for as well as what you didn’t know you desired. In turn, you are what Kheima wants and needs to be happy and fulfilled.

“It was much more difficult than anticipated working things together to reach this point. I’m pleased with the results so far as it narrows the possible paths from here greatly. That is not a guarantee of anything as free will is involved; yours and his, but many outcomes of this meeting today show a bond being forged that I want to see happen because it is best for all that it comes to pass.

Ravir’s cheeks coloured and he licked his lips. He looked flustered and eager at the same time. I appreciated the eagerness but I was mad that Hylocereus had directed my life in a way he wanted it to go. Fine, that was more or less his side-job with Fate but he’d promised me he wouldn’t do stuff like that after he nudged away a fellow soldier that I’d thought I was falling in love with because Hylocereus said he wasn’t the person for me. It didn’t matter that Hylocereus had ultimately been right. He’d promised not to poke his tail in my personal business again.

“Greatpa, you promised you wouldn’t do shit like this to me after the last time you shifted around my life. I’m telling Greatpa Deagan on you. Don’t think I won’t.”

Hylocereus chuckled and ruffled my hair. “No, Figling, I said I’d let you make all your choices without interfering in what you decided, which I haven’t nor will I do so. I simply pushed a bit harder on some areas than others to bring you to this place at this time to meet Ravir. The two of you needed to meet now and you both needed to be free of other relationships. Where it goes from this point is entirely up to the two of you and most certainly not any of my business.”

The medic’s wide-eyed gaze bounced between me, Ravir and Hylocereus. She looked like she was about two seconds away from wetting herself once she realized what, for the most part, was going on. To be fair, that was a pretty normal reaction to being in the presence of two gods, one of whom was an Elder God.

“Do I even need to bother telling you what I need advice on?” I couldn’t keep the annoyed tone out of my voice if I’d tried.

“If I may, Hylocereus?” Ravir asked as he walked towards us. At Hylocereus’ nod, Ravir looked at me. “I told you there would be a price to pay for your vengeance that was separate from the price I demanded for my help. I warned you that it may be steep. Your price for vengeance will be to live with the decision you make next and all that follows that.

“Let the child live, most likely avert a terrible war for the throne and give up decades of your life to being the child’s Regent to bring that all to fruition. Or take from the child her right to sit on the throne by amputating her ovipositor, probably avert a war for the throne yet leave the door open for a war to start should she have a female child herself that is born with an ovipositor. Or kill an innocent child who had nothing to do with your vengeance and live with that black mark on your soul and the knowledge that perhaps you’re not all that different from the Queen you hated so deeply when it comes to killing innocents to suit your purposes. Choose your price carefully, Kheima.”

I glared at Hylocereus and Ravir feeling a little like I was backed into a corner. “You’re both fucking dicks.”

The medic gasped and cringed at my words. She probably thought I was insane for saying that directly to not one but two gods. If I was anyone else saying what I had to two gods, I probably would have to be insane to have said it. I paced as I thought. I wasn’t going to kill the child. Ravir was right in that she’d had nothing to do with the vengeance that was owed. She wasn’t a Sojar and no threat to me personally.

But did I become Regent to the next queen and give up a life I was enjoying or did I steal her birthright from her, continue on my merry way and hope real hard that she never had a girl of her own that was born with an ovipositor that would probably start an awful war for who should sit on the throne?

_Fuck._

I sighed heavily and hung my head as I stopped pacing. My fathers had raised me well and driven into my head taking responsibility for my actions. I knew what I had to do and the price that was demanded of me. This sucked and my fathers were going to kill me after I explained everything. At least I’d still get to spend time in Ravir’s bed. Possibly a good bit of time going by what Hylocereus hinted at.

“I’ll be her Regent. I don’t know shit about running a kingdom and frankly don’t trust a single advisor here so I probably won’t listen much to what they say. I might screw shit up for the kingdom but I can say with one hundred percent confidence that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that Raina grows up to be nothing like you or your sister.”

The medic’s relief at my words was almost a palatable thing. She wrote down the names and location of the people raising Raina and strongly urged that I bring them back with Raina as they were good people and all that Raina knew as parents. She wrote a short note to them explaining who I was, what I’d done and that I was to be the Regent for Raina. She removed a ring from her finger and placed it on the letter before retrieving another letter from a spell-locked cabinet and placing it with the other, asking me to give the second letter to Raina when she was old enough to hear the explanation of what her mother had done and why.

“Thank you for sparing my child,” the medic said as she knelt before me.

I nodded and thrust my fingers into her head. I shuffled through her mind before killing her just on the off chance that she’d been lying to me about everything she’d said. She hadn’t been. She had loved her sister but she also resented her for amputating her ovipositor and even hated her a little for killing the other children she’d borne. I saw that it was a fairly common thing for potential queens to cut off the ovipositor of other potential queens but that still didn’t make it right in my head.

The medic had thought her sister was extremely cruel in what she did to the men of the carrel but she’d been excited to have the opportunity to observe and study the variations of Sojar from the Queen’s unusual practice of impregnating non-Pepsinae men. She’d also found the close bond that developed between the men of the carrel fascinating on a psychological level despite them being forced into sex with each other on command of the Queen when they didn’t enjoy sex with men. She’d even had a study in progress on the men who became depressed about having their Sojar baby taken away never to be seen by them again.

Even though the medic had Raina with her for only a few days after her birth and hadn’t seen the child since she sent her away or had any further contact with her or the people she was placed with, the medic loved her baby beyond anything and felt her life in exchange for her daughter’s life was more than fair.

It had filled her with supreme terror when she heard that I’d been able to read the Queen’s thoughts before killing her because she assumed, rightly so, that I’d do the same thing to her, learn of Raina and kill her, too. The medic had a tiny seed of doubt that I’d keep my word and become Regent to Raina, but she knew she’d done her absolute best to ensure the safety and wellbeing of her child given the circumstances.

I destroyed her brain and withdrew my hand. The medic collapsed to a heap on the floor. I sighed and leaned against the workbench. Ravir and Hylocereus looked at me, waiting for what I’d do next. A little bubble of panic rose within me. Shit was about to get very real, very soon. I wasn’t ready. Ravir had warned me that the price of my vengeance could be high but I’d never dreamed it would be something like this.

“You’re going to need to speak to your fathers sooner rather than later, Figling,” Hylocereus said gently when I didn’t say anything for several minutes.

“Yeah, I know. It was going to be enough of a chew out over the whole assignation thing. Becoming Regent is way beyond that. I did not expect any of this. How mad do you think Baba is going to be?”

“Small earth movement at best. He’s wanted to take out the Queen from very nearly the moment Qayin told him who it was that got him pregnant the first time and how it was done. It was only his promise to Qayin to do nothing that stayed his hand. He’ll be glad she’s dead but mad that he wasn’t the one to do it and perhaps more than a little frightened for you that you did this on your own and could’ve been fatally injured. He’ll be proud of what you’ve done but he will yell and scold you,” Hylocereus said.

Hylocereus slithered over to me and kissed me on the forehead before ruffling my hair affectionately. “Get those ribs looked at and healed up before you see your parents. Malachite will react even worse if he sees you injured regardless of how great or small that injury is. You can always talk to me without judgement, Figling, so never hesitate to call for me if you need to. Don’t forget that you’re to come to supper at our palace on Friday. Bring Ravir with you if you wish as you know Deagan loves new test subjects for this new cooking hobby of his.”

Hylocereus vanished. I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath before being sharply reminded that was a bad idea with healing ribs. I winced and hissed at the hot pain I’d caused myself. I did need to see someone about the ribs before talking to my fathers. But who?

Did I ask Kai-Wen and be forced into playing one of his asshole word games about what he demanded for payment for instant pain-free healing? Would Kulfi be the better choice with a slightly longer healing time, possible high-levels of pain to do that but absolutely no questions asked and no expectation of payment? Kyrieleison wasn’t an option. He could do minor healing stuff like cuts and bruises but hadn’t studied that discipline enough to be good at healing broken bones. I’d also need to go home for that and there was absolutely no way I wanted to run into any of my parents before I was ready.

“Can I ask a small favour, Lord Ravir?” He nodded and I continued. “Can you bring me to the medical unit of the Immortal Army? The palace is protected by wards and spells that prevent me from Gating in or out and I need to get these busted ribs healed before facing my fathers or joining you in bed. I know my ribs will be fine and totally healed on their own in a week but I’ve apparently got shit to do now and I’d rather do it without the distraction of healing bones.”

On moment we were standing in the medic’s workroom and the next we were outside the huge medical unit tent of the Immortal Army. I was well-used to the instant travelling with a god but it was still cool as shit every time. I wasn’t sure of exactly where we were at the moment but I had a general-ish idea of where the Army was supposed to be. Things were a bit more hectic than I anticipated and that didn’t bode well overall. Kulfi, or one of his staff if he was really pressed for time, could fix me up quick and I’d get right out of their collective hair. I hurried into the large tent with Ravir trailing behind me and scanned the area for Kulfi.

It was even more hectic inside the tent. Kulfi was a bit tough to spot as he was shorter than most males and even some females. Most men were frequently a good six inches or more in height than Kulfi, somewhat hiding him when he was in a crowd. Fortunately, Kulfi had pale, creamy green skin that reminded me of pistachio ice cream and that made him stand out somewhat from the typical person. His hair was black with poison green streaks in it and cut short in a bob which was the opposite of the current style of at least shoulder-length hair. I finally spotted him and quickly wove between the medical staff, patients on stretchers and wounded soldiers standing or sitting wherever they could.

As I approached I saw that Kulfi was busy snapping off the head of the very tall, gorgeous man in front of him. The man had skin the colour of salted caramels, long brown wavy hair with random braids of white and black in it that fell to nearly his ass and dark blue eyes that looked like they had golden crescent moons in them. A bold, black tribal tattoo was over his right eye from his hairline to almost his jaw. He wore very fine, expensive clothes that most definitely weren’t any flavour of military uniform and that fit him perfectly. He was incredibly striking and most certainly didn’t belong on a battlefield. I wondered what he was doing here aside from irritating the shit out of Kulfi.

“Look, I don’t give a flying fuck who you are or who the fuck you think you are. Your name and inflated sense of worth means less than nothing to me. This is my triage unit, I’m the boss here and I have massively more important things to do like save lives than talk to you or show you around or whatever it is you want from me. You aren’t hurt in any way that I can detect so you’re none of my concern, getting in my way and distracting me from the very real need of healing the wounded.

“If you’re going to insist on staying glued to me for the dumb-ass reason that I fascinate you, then you’d better roll up your expensive, fancy fucking sleeves and be helpful or I’ll have you bounced from this tent so fast your head will spin. I swear to all the gods if I ever find out what idiot sent you to pester me with this stupidity right now, I will break their fucking nose and then refuse to heal it or let anyone else do it,” Kulfi said as he stood toe-to-toe with the tall man, a fierce scowl on his face.

Kulfi was much shorter than the tall man, the top of Kulfi’s head barely coming to mid-chest on him. Despite that, Kulfi gave the impression of being the dominate and aggressive person between the two of them. Kulfi was small in stature but there wasn’t a submissive bone in his body that I’d ever seen. He had an aura of large-and-in-charge about him.

“You will be glorious in my bed. Such passion,” the tall man said in a seductive voice as he stroked a finger over Kulfi’s cheek just as there was a brief lull in the overall noise of the tent making his words easily heard by many of the people around them.

I winced and wondered if I was going to have to stop Kulfi from killing gorgeous-but-obviously-stupid for what he’d just said and done. Kulfi did not want others to know that he desired only men in his bed. Apparently it was a huge taboo among his people, the Fluorinites, and that desire had actually driven him from his home because his family couldn’t stand the shame of having an “unclean deviant” like him in their family.

Bright spots of colour appeared on Kulfi’s cheeks and I was almost willing to swear I could see steam coming off him before he wrestled his temper down. He still looked about half a second away from popping gorgeous-but-obviously-stupid in the nose with the mean left hook I knew Kulfi had. I stepped close and touched Kulfi’s arm, drawing his attention to me.

“Uhhh, Kulfi, its Kheima. I have a bit of an emergency. Could you do a fast and dirty heal on some busted ribs for me? I wouldn’t normally bug you for something like this especially when you’re so busy but, well, shit went a bit sideways on me on that vengeance thing I told you about and I need to be in top shape like immediately,” I said.

Kulfi’s expression went from furious rage to amusement and pleasure like a switch had been thrown. It was a bit freaky how he did that but that was just Kulfi. He turned to face me and grinned. His eyes were nearly closed with just the barest yellow-green of his eyes showing. He was nearly blind, able to only see shapes and colours unless something was almost touching his nose so his eyes were almost always closed to mere slits. We’d hit it off right away when we first met after I’d lopped off three of my fingers by accident in training and he’d called me an idiot for not paying closer attention to where a blade was when I had perfectly functioning eyes.

Funny enough, as pretty as Kulfi was, I never seriously thought of approaching him for anything sexual even after I found out he was only into men. Kulfi was my oath-brother and as bossy-hot as I was sure he would be in bed, it would be a total lust killer to try having sex with him. It would’ve felt like asking Kyrieleison to bed and while I loved my brother dearly and thought he was pretty and awesome, that was a big, fat ewww, no.

“Were you successful?” Kulfi asked as his hands ghosted over my sides. “I told you to be fucking careful. I don’t talk just to hear my own voice y’know.”

“Yeah, I was successful in completing my mission but there was a complication. My fathers are going to kill me for this new development.”

“Nah, they won’t kill you. They love you too much. Lock you in your rooms and make it so you can’t ever leave? Yeah, I can see that happening, especially from your Baba. Your ribs have started to heal. I can finish the job but it’s going to hurt like fuck as I don’t have the time to be all gentle about it. We had bad intel on the situation on the front and have been taking heavy causalities. The enemy is a lot more vicious and persistent than we’d been led to believe and their numbers are easily double what we thought we were going to face. I’m expecting the next wave of casualties to hit in another ten minutes tops. I probably have just enough time to fix your ribs.”

“Shit. Somebody’s head is going to roll for that. Glad it’s not mine. Do it. I can handle the pain. I’ll explain to you later what went down when you’re not up to your hips in casualties.”

Kulfi nodded and settled his hands lightly over my broken ribs, his touch feather-light and barely felt. He breathed in deeply and just seemed to still on a soul deep level. I’d seen him heal people tons of times before but it was always cool to watch him draw on his magic and shape it to do what he said he’d been born to do. He looked serene but fierce at the same time. The pain Kulfi said would come hadn’t started yet but I knew it would in the next few seconds once he released his magic into my ribs.

I wasn’t the only one watching Kulfi. Gorgeous-but-stupid was intently watching Kulfi, too. There was something about him that was tickling at the back of my head. I’d never seen him before in my life but there was something about him that was familiar. I frowned a little and concentrated a little harder only to have that concentration shattered as red-hot pain burst to life in my broken ribs. I barely kept the yelp back at that.

“Akusuo? A battlefield medical tent is about the last place I’d expect to see you. What are you doing here?” Ravir asked as he smiled at the tall man intently watching what Kulfi was doing.

“Ravir. The dying frequently have intensely strong final wishes. Some of those require my personal attention. I was here initially for that. Then I saw this exquisite man and needed to know more,” Akusuo said with a wave of his hand at Kulfi.

I swung my gaze to Akusuo, the pain in my ribs sinking into a deep, throbbing ache that I knew from experience was going to surge back into something much more as Kulfi forced my body to heal faster than it normally would.

“You’re a god,” I said it as a statement not a question. I was rather proud of myself that my voice was normal sounding when I spoke.

“Fuck my life,” Kulfi muttered under his breath just before white hot pain, more intense than the first wave, washed over my broken ribs making me yell as he forced them to heal.

“Akusuo, God of Secrets, Wishes and Dreams. I assume you are someone seeking vengeance or justice, perhaps both, since Ravir is with you?” Akusuo said with an intense look at me.

I grit my teeth and groaned at the searing pain but managed to nod my head.

“He’s Kheima, one of Malachite and Ji-Sun’s boys. Kheima prayed to me for help in completing his vengeance and we struck a deal that I think both of us are going to enjoy a lot if the advance sample was anything to go by,” Ravir said with a bright flash of lust in his eyes.

Akusuo stared at Ravir and then me for a moment before swinging his gaze back to Ravir. “Tread carefully, Ravir, even if you both are what the other deeply wishes for. I heard that Malachite is wildly protective of his children. He broke Issla’s hand for trying to hug one of his boys.”

“No, he didn’t,” I gasped out as the pain stepped up a notch before I could steady my voice. “I broke her fingers for grabbing Kyrieleison’s dick out of nowhere. He was twelve at the time and it sure as fuck wasn’t the joke she tried to say it was. Just because you’re a god doesn’t mean there’s never consequences to your actions. She was lucky Dad kept Baba and Tatay from killing her on the spot because they sure as shit wanted to.”

“Hylocereus approves,” Ravir said with a small smile. “He apparently nudged things along so that we would meet today. It’s been a rather interesting day all around and it’s barely noon.”

Akusuo swung his eyes back to Kulfi, his gaze intense. “Yes, it has been an interesting day. I’m sure it’ll lead to an interesting evening.”

“You’ve captured the attention of a god. Do I offer congratulations or condolences?” I asked in a low voice. “If it helps any, he’s smoking hot and I can say from recent experience that letting a god into your pants is awesome and better than rumours have said.”

“No, that doesn’t help,” Kulfi hissed quietly. “Okay, maybe it helps a little.”

“Just remember to be very firm and clear about what you want, what you’re okay with and what you’re not. Gods frequently act like they know everything but they don’t. If it’s not in their wheelhouse as a god, they can be just as clueless as a mortal.”

“Done,” Kulfi said as he withdrew his hands from my side. “You’ll probably feel a bit tired and I’d highly recommend a nap if you can take one as I forced your body to burn a lot of energy to heal faster than it normally could. Other than that, you’re fine to do whatever you want.”

“Thanks, Kulfi. I owe you one.”

“I’ll add it to your tab. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind and make you work here on the next wave of incoming injuries as pay back,” Kulfi said as he made shooing motions with his hands.

I clapped a hand on Kulfi’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze before leaving. I would’ve preferred to hug him in thanks but being hugged by a male where others could see that made him uncomfortable. I stood outside the tent for a moment and cautiously stretched. There wasn’t even a twinge of stiffness at my ribs. Damn, Kulfi was good. Ravir joined me outside the tent.

“Kulfi was... interesting,” Ravir said with a bit of a smile.

“Interesting? He’s bossy as fuck and he knows it. It’s part of his charm. He’s hot, too, but he doesn’t think so, maybe because he’s nearly blind? He’s a really nice guy and very thoughtful but if you happen to get on his wrong side or interrupt his work for stupid shit, he gets a bit dickish. Okay, more like bossy, rude asshole. I kinda wonder if all healers are that way,” I said with a fond chuckle.

“You know him very well and hold a great deal of affection for him,” Ravir said as a statement with a weird little edge to his voice.

“He’s my oath-brother, so yeah; I’d say I know him pretty well and love him to pieces. Lord Akusuo really stepped in it when he said that Kulfi would be glorious in his bed. I mean, it’s probably true but Kulfi doesn’t want people to know its dick or nothing for him. He gets really upset when people say that sort of thing where others can hear. His people think if you’re a guy and you’re attracted to guys you’re an unclean deviant. His family kicked him out and act like he never existed because they found that out about him. His village shunned him and forced him to leave, too. He says he brought shame to his family and they only did what they had to. That’s bullshit.

“I’ve tried to tell him that it’s not wrong to be attracted to and enjoy a guy in bed and that he doesn’t need to try to keep it a secret here because nobody fucking cares. If somebody in the Army was dumb enough to say men together is unclean and deviant and Lord Mkhai was to hear that, well, it would go badly for that person. There might be smiting involved. It makes me really, really mad at his family for packing Kulfi’s head full of that bullshit and for tossing away someone as cool as Kulfi for such a stupid reason. You can’t help who you’re attracted to.”

“Mkhai would only get upset if someone were to threaten harm to Kathiel because he shared a bed with another male,” Ravir said dismissively.

“First off, nobody in their right mind would be brave enough to say shit to Kathiel never mind try to attack him. Aside from the fact that he’s the husband of a god, Kathiel is a necromancer. Not just any necromancer. He’s the Necro-Saiwala, the head necromancer of all necromancers. Fine, there’s not a lot of necros out there, thank the gods, but they all ultimately answer to him because he’s the most powerful one there is. He could probably make all the necros do stuff because he’s the boss. He’s a scary guy.”

“Do mortals fear necromancers that much? Their fear of a necromancer would outweigh that of a god? Kathiel is a very nice man. Somewhat shy at first but a very engaging conversationalist once you get him to overcome that shyness. He has a beautiful singing voice,” Ravir said.

“Yeah, mortals fear necromancers that much. They don’t exactly have the best record for staying sane and there’s that whole binding your soul into their service thing until they tire of you that most mortals feel pretty strongly nervous and negative about.”

“The soul-binding happens less than you think although I can’t argue the sanity part. So now that you’re healed, what’s next?”

“Well, fairly soon the servants are going to enter the Queen’s quarters to bring lunch and find the results of my handiwork. I think I should make some sort of... I dunno, announcement to the Pepsinae people about what’s happened and what will happen. I think for that, I should have Raina with me. That’s going to cause a bit of a scene I’m sure. I need to get the men of the carrel looked after, too. To do that, I’m going to have to tell my parents what I’ve done and what I’ll be doing from here on out. Once all that is done, then I can fulfill my deal with you.

“I’m sorry if you’re not happy about being shoved to the bottom of the list of things I need to do right now but I can’t see any way to fulfill my deal with you and get the other stuff done, too, when the other stuff is time sensitive, more pressing in my opinion and our deal is a twenty-four hour thing. I swear you will have my undivided attention when it’s your turn.”

“It’s fine. Today has been very interesting so far and given what still needs to happen before claiming my payment I think things are only going to continue to be interesting. Please, lead the way,” Ravir said with a grin.

“I’m going to Gate to the place where Raina is. It’ll take me a couple of stop-over points and a little bit of a rest between movements because it’s pretty far from here but it’s not crazy far. I will need your help, if you’re willing, to get back into the Queen’s chambers though. If not, I’ll figure something out. I’d prefer not to march up to the front gate but if I have to, then I have to.”

“I can take us to Raina and then back to the palace in less than an instant. Why didn’t you ask that of me?” Ravir asked curiously.

“This is my responsibility and part of the price you’d warned me about. I should handle shit on my own where I can. You also did exactly what I prayed for so you owe me nothing further and I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to get more than we agreed upon.”

“To travel in an instant is nothing for a god and I know you’re aware of that. For the liveliness of the day that you’ve already given me, consider the travel aspect a sign of my appreciation of that.”

I grinned. “Sweetness. Alright, let’s get this mission rolling.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

I settled into a comfy chair in a sitting room in Ravir’s fortress and sighed in relief at finally being able to relax. Raina and her guardians had been brought to the palace after I explained what happened, who I was and what was going to happen. I’d addressed the court advisors and ministers about what I’d done, who I was, who Raina was and what was going to happen regarding the throne. There probably would’ve been a lot more shouting from the advisors and ministers and likely swords drawn if I hadn’t had my parents and Ravir in the throne room with me at the time. Nothing urged caution in mortals quite like three gods standing sentinel over you and two of them looking a bit on the displeased side.

Raina had been confirmed to be of the royal bloodline and a potential queen. Poor kid was confused as to what was going on but she excited to be in a new place with so much to explore. Given that she was only two years old, I figured that she’d adjust fairly fast. There wasn’t a lot of questioning about who I was as it was a well-known palace fact that the Queen had tossed away a Sojar baby with three arms and the man who bore him only to find out when it was too late that she’d had Chimeric Demons in her hands.

Tatay was proud of what I’d done but scolded me for taking such a huge risk as he hugged me hard. Dad hugged me tight enough to force a squeak out of me and made me promise I’d never do something so foolish again. Baba whispered in my ear when he hugged me that he hoped I’d made the Queen suffer hideously before I killed her because it was no less than she deserved. I didn’t think I’d heard the last of it from my parents about what I’d done and risks I’d taken but they also saw what I had ahead of me and decided to keep the chew-out to modest levels for the time being.

Tatay couldn’t help the men of the carrel so Kai-Wen was called. It was his bad luck and outstanding fortune for the men of the carrel that Belial was with him when he answered the call. Belial was best friends with Sancire. Sancire was a Pepsinae and they’d met when Sancire was fleeing from being added to the Queen’s carrel against his will nearly three hundred years ago. When Kai-Wen started to demand a price to remove the Sojar from the men, Belial cut him off mid-sentence and said the men were owed the terminations after all they’d been through. He wouldn’t be swayed from his stance either. Kai-Wen grumbled but did what Belial told him to which amused all of us who knew Kai-Wen, Belial and the Master/slave relationship they enjoyed together. Belial was his utterly willing slave but he’d order around Kai-Wen, and Kai-Wen would obey, if Belial felt it was important.

“We can postpone payment a day or two if you’d like,” Ravir offered as he handed me a mug of tea. “To say that you had an eventful day would be an understatement.”

“Are you kidding me? Knowing this was going to be my reward at the end of it all was the only thing that kept me moving forward with everything and not running screaming for the hills,” I said as I inhaled the delicate scent of oranges, tea and a hint of lavender coming from the mug in my hands.

Ravir smiled, his eyes lighting with banked lust. “Your reward? I’m quite pleased and flattered that you feel that way about joining me in bed when you’ve had only the barest of experience with me.”

“Quit fishing for more compliments. Gods are so greedy for praise. I told you earlier that you had amazing skills,” I said as I took a cautious sip of the hot tea.

Ravir laughed. “You did. It is something of a god thing to demand praise although god or not, most like to hear their partner tell them they enjoyed being intimate.”

“If I’d enjoyed it any more than I did, I’d have passed out. As it was I was pretty wobbly-kneed. And that was just a blow job.”

Ravir damn near preened. He looked really hot as he was doing it so I said nothing and watched him, appreciating his beauty as I drank my tea. Gods most certainly didn’t need their egos stroked at all but he did have a point about liking to hear that you’d pleased your lover. I was very much looking forward to stroking other, more tangible things, on Ravir. I didn’t even know what he had in his pants as I hadn’t seen his dick yet but I was damn eager to find out.

There was also the wickedly strong attraction I felt towards him. It was more than him being gorgeous and me being horny for an incredibly hot man. I felt a connection to him that I couldn’t explain. It was like I just knew he’d accept all of me unconditionally. I had no idea where that surety was coming from. It just was. It was scary and exhilarating at the same time.

I knew that knowledge wasn’t from when I’d had my fingers in his head earlier because I needed to go looking through somebody’s head to find out stuff. Just sinking my fingers into a person’s brain told me nothing. Fine, there’d been a two-way connection between me and Ravir when I’d subconsciously pushed my fingers into his head as he blew me but I’d also never ghosted my fingers into a god’s head before so for all I knew, that could be a completely normal thing to happen where gods were concerned.

“You mentioned kinks and needing to discuss those things beforehand. Is there anything in particular you’d like to do? While I’m apparently rather plain in my bedroom needs for my pleasure compared to other gods, I’m nearly always willing to indulge my partner in their kinks,” Ravir said as he took a seat in a chair next to me.

I shrugged. “It might be easier to say what I won’t do or am not interested in doing. It’s not a long list but I feel pretty comfortable in saying the few things are a hard no for me. I haven’t tried any of them but I’m still sure they’re on my nope list.”

“And those things would be?”

“Shit and piss play. I don’t understand those at all and I’m not willing to try to understand the appeal. It’s gross to me and they’re both a very hard no. Breath play is also a hard nope. Just so you know, I get a little panicky in general if I suddenly can’t breathe. Humiliation stuff is not sexy in my head and if you want me to cross-dress, I’ll walk out the door and you can go fuck yourself with regards to any deal we made because I’m not into that and it makes me feel very uncomfortable. That goes for role-play, too, because it seems dishonest in my head. Don’t ask me to explain it better than that because I can’t. Master/slave is cool to watch but I don’t think I could get into the right head space for that for either role. I’d be willing to give it a cautious whirl just to see but I’m almost positive it’ll be a no for me.”

“Fair enough on those things. None of them are things I’d typically ask of a partner. Honestly, cock in mouth or ass, getting or giving a handjob, feasting on my partner’s ass and having them do the same to me is all I generally want or need. I like stroking their body and having that touch returned, too. Teasing nipples and fondling balls is very appreciated as well. I didn’t say I was the least kinky of the gods in order to ease your nerves. I really am the least kinky,” Ravir said with a chuckle.

I sipped my tea and studied Ravir through the gently wafting steam from my mug. If that was the case of his sexual preferences I was pretty happy with things. I wondered if I should mention the one thing that I knew I had as a kink. I wasn’t expecting him to see to it but I was a bit curious about his reaction to it. Tatay said being honest with your partner was critically important whether it was in bed or just in general and whether it was a brief fling or something long-lasting. The worst that could happen would be for Ravir to say he wasn’t into it and wouldn’t do it, which was fine.

The few people that’d I’d told about my kink had all looked at me like I was nuts with the exception of Tatay but he sort of didn’t count because there was absolutely nothing sexual that could surprise him being what he was god of. Dad said knife and blood kink wasn’t that uncommon among demons because of our regeneration ability and the interesting, mildly aphrodisiac property of demon blood. I hadn’t breathed a word about my enjoying knife or blood play to Baba because he was so overprotective.

Thinking about knife kink reminded me that Ravir had asked to see my kukri earlier. I figured I could use that opportunity to segue into seeing how he felt about knife play since so many people reacted less than positively to mentioning it.

“Oh yeah, you wanted to see my kukri. She’s a beautiful piece of functional martial artwork,” I said as I set my mug down on the table between us, leaned a bit forward, unsheathed my blade from my back and handed it to Ravir hilt first.

He took the blade from me and hefted it, testing its weight and balance. He admired the scrollwork on the blade and checked the grip of the hilt. He didn’t bother testing the sharpness of the blade having seen what it could do earlier in the day. He stood and slashed it through the air a few times before making a few feints, parries and thrusts with it. He expertly flipped the blade around, the motions smooth and sure. He obviously knew how to handle a blade and that excited me.

“She is exquisite. Bao-Tein’s work obviously. I have a lovely pair of daggers and a set of throwing knives made by her. They are perfection to use and feel like an extension of myself when in hand. I’ve a sword crafted by Bao-Tein as well but the daggers are my favourites.”

“Can I see them? The daggers and throwing knives? I have a bit of an obsession with knives.”

Ravir handed me my kukri and a matched pair of daggers appeared in his hands. He waited for me to re-sheath mine before handing a dagger to me. Even without being told that they’d been made by a god, I’d have said they were god-forged. The dagger was perfectly balanced, fit into my hand like it was made to nestle there and was beautifully designed.

The blade curved like the talon of a bird of prey and was serrated for the first few inches on the top edge of the blade near the guard. The guard had hooked points and was inset with tiny marcasite gems all along its length. The hilt was very gently curved and naturally shaped to make holding it feel like it should be in your hand. The hilt was wrapped with sharkskin like my kukri to give excellent grip even when wet. The pommel had a faceted onyx set in it.

“It’s beautiful,” I said with reverence.

I had to see what the blade felt like on my skin. I needed to know like I needed to draw my next breath. I dragged the blade lightly over the skin of my forearm, a little sigh of pleasure leaving me at the cool, silky smooth feel. I flicked my wrist the barest bit at the end of the stroke making a small slash in my skin that was little more than a glorified paper cut. The blade was so sharp that I didn’t even feel the wound being made. My breath shuddered out of me and my cock perked up in interest as a few droplets of blood escaped before the wound healed over in mere seconds.

“Kheima!” Ravir snapped as the blade vanished from my hand to appear in his.

“What?” I asked as I looked up at Ravir, a little disappointed that he’d taken the blade back so quickly.

I didn’t doubt for a second that there was likely a spark of arousal now smouldering in my eyes and wondered what he’d make of that. He studied me for several long seconds before he spoke, his expression guarded but the fire of desire suddenly brightening in his eyes.

“I’ve seen you work with a blade. You’re very good, gifted even. I can’t believe the nick you gave yourself was accidental. Why did you deliberately cut yourself with my dagger?”

“Because I wanted to know what your blade would feel like opening my skin. It felt good,” I said as I stared boldly at him. “Really good.”

Ravir licked his lips and swallowed hard. Oh, this suddenly had a lot of potential. What were the odds of the kink Ravir mentioned having but rarely indulged being the same as mine? Then again, Hylocereus had said that Ravir had needed to wait for a long time in order to have what he needed. That could mean there would be more than just this one-time deal between us if we both enjoyed the same kink. I was cautiously okay with that level of meddling in my life.

“In certain sexual situations, feeling a knife on my skin or having one cut me is not only desired but deeply erotic to me. Knife play is a kink I know I like a lot because I’ve done it to myself while getting off. I’ve never played that way with someone else mostly because the few times that I have done something sexual with someone, it’s never been more than a one-time thing and restricted to hand or blow jobs. I’ve also never felt safe enough with someone to ask them to cut me during sex.

“I’m utterly positive I’d be perfectly safe with you cutting me. Not because you’re a god. Well, not entirely because of that. I know you understand the feelings involved in knife play. I’m not entirely sure how. Maybe it’s because I had my fingers in your head when you blew me and I learned that you like knife play, too. I wasn’t snooping around in your head, honest. I didn’t even realize I’d pushed my fingers into your brain at the time. I’ve never randomly gotten sensations or thoughts from someone when my fingers have been in their head so I’m not sure what to make of that. I liked it though.

“Whether or not you want to play with that kink with me is up to you. I’m very interested. We’d still need to discuss limits and safe words and stuff like that because I’m not about to dive into serious shit like that without those safeguards in place regardless of you being a god. Tatay taught me way better than that.”

Ravir sat down abruptly on his chair. The beautiful daggers vanished and he stared so hard at me that I wondered if he was trying to see into my soul. There was eagerness but also a touch of uncertainty in his eyes. Gods were always impossibly confident, arrogantly so, and it was surprisingly hot to see the little bit of hesitation in Ravir’s eyes.

“It may be stupid to ask this given your background, but you do understand that gods in a sexual situation can be very demanding and our appetite is large. We try to curb that somewhat for mortal lovers but we’re not always successful. Sometimes more of our godhood seeps out than we intended when we’re very excited or simply being constantly exposed to our aura because of the closeness of sex, we exhaust our mortal partner. Allowing a god to indulge his kink, especially one not often treated to, is usually a fast way to end up with too much exposure to godhood for a mortal.”

“So knife play, specifically cutting, is something you enjoy,” I said as a statement not a question. “What about the blood aspect? Or is that not for you? You probably know this but demon blood has mild aphrodisiac qualities if ingested. Not saying you need to taste any of mine, but that option is on the table, too.”

“Yes, knife play where cutting is involved is the kink I mentioned that I enjoy but rarely do,” Ravir said in a low tone that made my cock throb. “It’s not wise for me to play with a mortal that way. Too many things can go wrong. It’s also very difficult to find someone that wants to play that way, mortal or not. I know I’ll have less control over the amount of my aura that flares from me simply because it’s so thrilling and arousing to me to have a partner that enjoys that sort of play. I’m completely controlled as far as wielding the knife but my godhood is the far more dangerous, deadly thing to a mortal. I’ve never tasted demon blood while indulging my kink as I feel I don’t need anything to further test my control over my aura in a potentially dangerous situation for the mortal.”

That was a fair point. Cutting someone for mutual pleasure was intense. I hadn’t done that with anyone but I knew it was a powerful rush for me to do it to myself so it was a no-brainer to assume that doing it between partners who got off on it would be even more so.

“I don’t know if it’s true or not but I think I have better than average resistance to a divine aura simply because I grew up constantly feeling the feather-light touch of not one but two divine auras every single day. I’m not at all saying I could survive you unleashing your full godhood or even a significant portion of it. I’m not stupid. That would kill me like any other mortal. I saw Baba let out something like a quarter of his godhood once on a stone giant and the giant exploded into sand. That was cool and scary at the same time.

“Perhaps your worry about me feeling more than your normal levels of godhood around mortals isn’t much of an issue. The only way we’ll know is to test it out. Don’t forget that I also got a huge-for-a-mortal dose of your godhood when you blew me earlier and I’m fine. Yeah, you did nearly turn my knees into jelly from how intense it was but I’d say it was a pretty even split between your cock sucking skills and your godhood that made that happen.”

Ravir’s smile edged into becoming a preening leer. “I am quite gifted at sucking cock. Even Ji-Sun has said so. It is one of the simpler pleasures that I greatly enjoy.”

“Okay, I didn’t need to know that you and Tatay have done a bang. I mean, I know he routinely fucks a lot of people including other gods because of his godhood and the duties tied to that but I’d appreciate it if you never mention sleeping with him again. So this kink of yours, does it apply to you getting cut, too, or is it just the one you’re with? I know I like feeling a blade on my skin but do you like it on yours?” I asked curiously.

“I’ve never been in a position where I feel enough trust with a partner to allow myself to be cut. Not in the true way where actual harm may be done if my partner isn’t careful. I can certainly allow my flesh to be cut but keep any actual harm from happening. That’s beyond simple. Many gods do this when interacting casually with mortals. But that’s not the entirety of what this type of knife play is about and I feel confident you understand that. It feels false to me to not allow actual harm and disrespectful to do that so I don’t.”

“Oh. That’s... kinda sad.”

Ravir shrugged. “It’s sometimes very hard on multiple levels to be a god,” he said softly.

“Baba and Tatay say that, too. Okay. Just in case, I want some words between us to slow or stop things in case stuff gets too intense. I’m not saying anything more than dick in ass or mouth needs to happen, but given that both of us have a kink for knife and blood play, I think a little advance planning is just a good idea. Or if your aura gets to be too much.”

“I can’t really fault your line of thinking,” Ravir said.

“Good. For me, feather to slow and rock to stop. I also know you can do a truly mindboggling number of things using your power as a god to make sex happen in almost an instant as far as dick in ass goes but I’m asking that you not do that. I want to experience it all. I want to feel you loosen my ass to take your cock. I want that low level burn of entry. I’ve used dildoes in my ass plenty of times but this is the real deal and I want the full show.”

“I’ll use the same words as you to keep things simple. I never intended to cheat and make you ready for me with a thought. I deeply enjoy coaxing my lover’s body into opening to me.”

“Fantastic. Lord Ravir, I’m ready to complete my part of our deal. How would you like me?” I asked as I slid from the chair and knelt before Ravir.

“For this time between us you may simply call me Ravir. Undress for me and turn slowly so I can fully appreciate the fineness of what you’ll be sharing with me.”

I stood and removed several small knives from the folds of cloth of my top, placing them on the table by the chair. I unstrapped my kukri from my back and put that on the table, too. I unfastened the large jewelled pin at my waist that held the fabric of my top together and unwound it from my torso. I let the yards of fabric flutter to the floor and put the pin on the table with my knives. I untied my pants and gave my hips a shimmy, stepping out of them as they pooled at my ankles. I did a slow turn in front of Ravir as he asked, my cock half erect in excitement at what was about to happen.

“You are truly lovely,” Ravir said with appreciation and lust in his voice and eyes.

“Thanks. I’d like to see you naked, too. I’m really curious about the mark I can see on your chest. What is it?”

Ravir stood and as he did his clothes seemed to disintegrate into sparkling dust. That would probably impress most mortals but I’d seen Baba and Tatay do something similar countless times, usually when they were teasing Dad. Clothes were a pretty casual affair in my house and it wasn’t uncommon to see all kinds of people nude in the palace including my parents.

It wasn’t the clothes disappearing from Ravir that had me silent. It was the utter perfection of him nude and the large design on his chest from the hollow of his throat to breast bone and filling nearly the entire width of his chest. Now that his clothes weren’t in the way, I could see that it was a highly stylized sword in the upright position. Curving blades sprouted from the main blade, framing it and making it something that would never be actually useable in a fight. It was still a beautiful piece of artwork.

If it was artwork.

“Is that a tattoo or proof of your godhood?” I asked.

Many gods had things that marked them as gods. Sometimes it was subtle and other times it wasn’t. Fei-Lau had a giant snowflake on his forehead with a blue jewel in the center. Ondraeden had huge curling horns on his head. Saraf’s right arm was scaled like a dragon’s in gold and silver. Tatay looked like whatever a person believed the God of Carnal Desire, Love and Fertility looked like. Grandpa Rhas-Khan had translucent hands with thousands of points of light in them. The mark over Akusuo’s eye could be his god-mark for all I knew.

“I forget that you’re far more familiar with gods than any mortal I’ve ever met. It is part of my godhood. I am the God of Vengeance and Justice. It is my sword to bring about those things,” Ravir said as he placed his hand over the hilt, his fingers seeming to sink into his chest as he grasped it and literally pulled the sword off his chest.

My mouth dropped open in shock. The length of the blade doubled as it left his body, becoming a short sword. The blades sprouting from the sides of the sword stayed on his chest but given what he’d done, it was possible he could pull those from his body, too, if he wanted or need to. That was so damn cool. I’d been around a staggering number of gods all my life and I’d never seen anything like what Ravir just did. He smirked at me brought his sword up, pressed the flat of the blade under my chin and gently pushed up, shutting my mouth for me.

The blade was warm and there was the faintest sort of pulse to it. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that it felt like the beat of a heart. There was also a very subtle sensation of power that was both tightly leashed and wildly powerful. It was incredibly erotic and I groaned, my cock going hard as steel in an instant.

“This blade is an extension of me and my Will. It is my power given physical form. I can kill a god with it and am the executioner of gods the very rare times when it is necessary. I can also light the fire of vengeance and justice within a mortal by thrusting it into them without killing or harming them.”

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed. “Can I touch it?”

Ravir gave me a shrewd look. “It will not harm you no matter how hard you try as I don’t wish it to. That being said, you may touch it.”

I scowled a bit at that. I ran a finger of my ephemeral hand over the edge of the blade because I always touched things first with that hand and had since I was a baby. True to Ravir’s word it didn’t cut me. I could sense how impossibly sharp the blade was on some level but it didn’t even hint at breaking my skin. That was disappointing but cool at the same time.

Ravir’s reaction to my touching his sword was anything but disappointing.

He sucked in a startled breath and I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I glanced down and watched his cock go hard pretty much as quickly as mine had. The long claw on my finger scraped along the blade as I stared at his cock and his cock bobbed in response. _Interesting_. I deliberately dragged my claw over the blade again and smiled slowly as a bead of pre-come gathered at the tip of his dick.

“It excites you to have someone touch your blade,” I said as I looked up at Ravir.

Confusion and arousal swirled through his eyes. “It’s never happened before. The very rare times where I had my blade out in a sexual encounter and had someone touch it, I never felt anything.”

I smiled broadly. I brought one of my other hands up and stroked a finger over the blade. This had potential to be hella cool for both of us. Ravir frowned a little at the added touch and I immediately stopped moving my hands.

“Well that’s odd. I feel nothing when your regular hand touches my blade, just the normal pressure of a hand on it. Your ephemeral hand, however, feels like you’re touching my cock in the most pleasurable way possible.”

“Really? That’s weird but cool at the same time. Unless you don’t like the way my ephemeral hand feels. Some people don’t. They say it freaks them out. Do you want me to stop touching your sword with my ephemeral hand?”

“No,” Ravir said with a thread of godly command in his voice. “It feels heavenly and incredibly erotic in a way I’ve never experienced before. I would have you hold my sword in your hands and stroke the blade with your ephemeral hand while I suck your cock. I want to see if it’ll feel as exquisite as I suspect it will. Would you indulge me in that, Kheima?”

“Oh, fuck yes,” I said as arousal twisted hard through me.

This was going to be a level of blade play I’d never even dreamed was possible. Ravir let go of his sword and it remained hovering in mid-air, the flat of the blade still under my chin. He went to his knees in front of me and lightly stroked my cock with his fingers.

“Hold my sword upright by the hilt with your hands against your chest. Stroke the blade with your ephemeral hand. Pleasure me through my sword as I pleasure you,” Ravir commanded.

I did not need to be told twice. I thought knife play was erotic. Knowing that fondling Ravir’s blade with my ephemeral hand was like stroking his cock was a thousand times more erotic than just simple knife play to me. I grasped the hilt of his sword and held it as he’d told me to. The blade weighed almost nothing in my hands yet there was a massive, almost crushing heaviness to it that had nothing to do with physical weight. I brought it to my chest, the point resting at the hollow of my throat and moaned at the feel of the warm length of the sword against my skin from my throat to just above my groin.

Ravir kissed the head of my cock before he began licking the length of it. He cupped my balls with one hand, gently tugging and squeezing them. His other hand smoothed over my ass, stroking and pressing his fingers lightly into my cheeks, sometimes teasing the tip of a finger over my pucker. A shiver rolled down my spine when I felt the faint pulsing of his sword speed up a tiny bit as he played with my body.

“Touch my blade, Kheima. Stroke me through it,” Ravir commanded. “I won’t take you into my mouth until you do.”

Oh, fuck that was hot. I really wanted to touch the blade like he told me to but at the same time, I was enjoying the way he was moving his tongue over my length. The demand in his voice was kinda hot, too. I focused on the way his tongue licked me and gripped the hilt tighter as he slowly worked over my cock and even teased my balls with his tongue, my arousal climbing. It was torture but really good torture and I wasn’t sure I wanted it to end.

When I didn’t think I could take the teasing touch of just his tongue licking me any longer, I stroked a finger down the length of the blade. The effect on Ravir, and by extension, his sword, was amazing. He groaned lowly before swallowing me down to the root in one go making me groan as well. The pulse of his sword doubled and it warmed even more. He bobbed his head like his life depended on pulling the seed from my balls purely by suction.

Without thinking about it, my ephemeral hand curled around the blade and slowly moved up and down. I knew the blade was impossibly sharp but it didn’t even raise a welt on my skin no matter how hard I pressed. I was a bit disappointed by that but I loved the reaction I got from Ravir at basically jacking him off through his sword as he blew me. He put both hands on my ass, moving my hips forcefully so that I was fucking his mouth hard and deep. He very obviously loved sucking cock and I was utterly thrilled to help him do what he took so much joy in doing.

Ravir groaned deep in his throat in pleasure, the vibrations feeling amazing on my dick. He sped up his movements a little and I copied him, adjusting my stroking of his sword to match his mouth action. My arousal was steadily increasing from what he was doing with his mouth and the reaction I was getting from him as I jerked him off through his sword. Before I ready for it, my balls drew up and I was seconds away from coming.

“I’m going to come,” I panted as I jerked his sword faster. I wanted him to come with me.

“Come. Fill my mouth with your seed, Kheima,” Ravir said, godly commanded in his voice.

“Come with me,” I demanded as I struggled against the desire riding me hard and the unexpected hotness of him commanding me to come.

“Absolutely,” Ravir said in a deep voice before he swallowed me down to the root again.

I shouted and squeezed the blade of his sword, jerking it hard as my orgasm whipped through me. Ravir’s fingers dug into the flesh of my ass holding me pressed tightly to him. I looked down at him and watched as lust and pleasure burned in his eyes as I orgasmed. His throat worked to swallow all that I gave him sending more pleasure whipping through me. Heat suddenly pulsed from his sword, washing over my chest and belly. Warm liquid spurted over my shins and feet and Ravir groaned, his eyes squeezing shut as he peaked. The golden glow of Ravir’s godhood expanded briefly several inches from him, the barely there brush of it against my skin warm, arousing and intensely powerful before it was pulled back into his body. I felt euphoric that I’d excited him so much that he’d come without any physical touch to his dick.

I panted and was sure it was only Ravir’s hands on my ass that kept me from collapsing to a thoroughly pleasured heap at his feet. Damn, the man had serious skills in the cock sucking department. He slowly pulled off my cock, stood and scooped me into his arms, the feel of his come on my skin vanishing as he obviously used godly power to make it so. He was breathing hard and I could feel how tightly he was controlling his power which was incredibly thrilling.

I made him like this and I was very, very pleased with myself for doing it. The almost intoxicating scent coming from him was thick in my nose and sent a pleasurable zing through my ass and making my nipples tighten into hard nubs. If he could bottle whatever that scent was I’d buy crates of it and sniff it every time I jerked off.

“That was fucking awesome. I think you might’ve just ruined me for blade play with anyone else. I am not mad about that in the slightest because it was just too amazing. It felt so good and you didn’t even cut me. I loved that when you came, it sort of felt like your sword did, too. Please tell me you want to do that again later.”

Ravir gave me a considering, cautious look. “You’re feeling fine? The little bit of my godhood that slipped from me wasn’t too much for you? I didn’t intend to do that but it was unexpectedly intense to feel you jerking me off through my sword.”

“Better than fine. Your aura felt amazing for the few seconds it brushed over my skin. Weirdly, I’m still really aroused even though I just came hard down your throat, which was fucking fantastic and hugely erotic. I’ve had a couple of guys swallow before but not like you. You wanted to swallow my seed. It’ll probably blow my freaking mind when we suck each other’s cock. Although, fair warning, I’m not into swallowing. You can come in my mouth, and I’m totally fine with that, but I’ll discretely spit after.” I had to force myself to shut the hell up because I knew I was at the edge of babbling. Probably because of the erotic euphoria I was feeling.

Ravir smiled and it was predatory and possessive. That probably should’ve worried me at least a little considering he was a god but it didn’t. Instead I felt warm satisfaction and a strange sense of accomplishment. There was also that odd sensation of a connection with Ravir that just felt so damn right.

“I deeply enjoy receiving a male’s milk. It’s the reward for my efforts at pleasing my partner. Swallowing and enjoying that is very personal. Of course I’d love it if you did but I’m not going to be upset if you don’t. I assume you have no objections at moving this to my bed?”

“I’m going to insist you move us to your bed. My legs feel a bit wobbly at the moment. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am get your dick in my ass.”

Ravir laughed, lust flashing through his eyes and the sword I still held to my chest pulsing in reaction. He kissed me hard on the lips and despite not enjoying the flavour of a man’s seed; I again thought it was wickedly erotic to taste myself on his lips. I could hardly wait for what was next.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

One moment we were in a nice, spacious sitting room and the next we were in Ravir’s bedchambers. I’d never been in his bedroom seeing as how I’d only met him face-to-face earlier in the day, but it felt like home to me. His bedchambers actually reminded me a lot of my own at home. The colour scheme was different with his being sombre greys, black and white with little pops of colour here and there where my rooms were all jewel tones with a few splashes of neutrals. The sameness was in the simplicity of the furniture for the most part, how the room was laid out and the staggering number of weapons mounted on the walls. It was a little bit freaky how similar the rooms were but cool at the same time.

His bed was the show-stopper and I immediately coveted it. Giant swords taller than Ravir made up the four posts of the bed and the posts were hung with finely woven gold chainmail as curtains. The sheets were the colour of freshly spilled blood and there was a huge, fluffy, snow-white fur throw at the foot of the bed. The mattress was fairly high off the raised dais the bed was on and I grinned when I realized that I could probably stand beside the bed, bent over with my chest on the mattress and be in the perfect position for fucking without needing to bend my knees at all. _Sweet_.

Ravir strode to the bed and gently set me on it. The sheets were soft and felt like suede and silk at the same time. His sword, still held tightly in my grasp, vanished and reappeared on Ravir’s chest. I frowned at that. I liked the response I got from him when I touched it. I liked the way it felt as if his sword was coming when he did. I wanted to see what would happen if I touched it while he fucked me.

“We can play later with the delightful oddity of my reaction to your ephemeral hand on my sword. I’d like for you to be a bit more hands-on now,” Ravir said with a smile.

“Hands-on is fine with me,” I said as I raked my eyes over him. “Can I just touch you for a bit? You’ve touched me way more than I’ve touched you. I like it a lot but I want to get to know your body.”

Ravir got onto the bed beside me and stretched out. “Touch anywhere you’d like. Kisses and licking are highly encouraged.”

I grinned and sat up on my heels near his hip. I hesitated for a moment, my ephemeral hand hovering over his feet without touching him. I glanced at Ravir’s face and he nodded encouragement at me. Relief surged through me at his permission to touch him with my ephemeral hand. I’d been mostly sure he’d be okay with it since he’d asked me to sink my fingers into his head when he finally fucked me but I hadn’t been sure he’d want me to touch him anywhere else with it.

My ephemeral hand started at his feet and glided up his body. His skin was soft with only the barest of baby fine hair on his arms and legs that I couldn’t even see unless I looked closely. The hair on his head was as luxurious as the larinvac fur on the animals Greatpa Deagan raised and there was nothing finer and softer than that. I carded my fingers through his hair for several minutes enjoying the cool, silky slide of the strands over my skin.

“You touch everything with your ephemeral hand first. Why?” Ravir asked as his fingers lightly stroked over my thigh and teased over the bit of my ass that he could reach.

“It’s more sensitive. I learn more with it. You’re really not bothered by it? I’ve had a lot of people flinch away or straight up ask me not to touch them with it, which I won’t if they ask me not to. I get that it’s weird looking compared to every other arm that people have because it’s so long with two elbows and only three fingers. But it’s just part of me,” I said with a little shrug.

Ravir captured my ephemeral hand with his and brought it to his lips. He kissed each of my fingers before placing a kiss in the palm. “I’m looking forward to feeling your hands, all of your hands, on my body.”

My pulse jumped at the same time that my throat tightened a little. I didn’t have a huge number of sexual experiences but none of the people I’d been with had wanted me to touch them sexually with my ephemeral hand. That hurt. Tatay said I’d find people who would view my third arm as nothing more than part of me and welcome the touch but it hadn’t happened yet. Until Ravir.

“Thank you,” I said softly.

I could see the question in his eyes over what and why I was thanking him but he didn’t say a word. He kept hold of my hand and began kissing and licking my fingers before sucking one into his mouth. My breath left me on a rush and my dick made a valiant but failed effort to rise again.

“You have a serious oral fixation. I’m not complaining, but I thought you should know,” I said before a soft moan sounded in my throat.

Ravir laughed. “Guilty. I hope you’ll indulge me in that.”

“Fuck, yeah. Super happy to indulge you.”

Ravir took my finger back into his mouth and sucked. A shiver of pleasure worked down my spine. He was most definitely a generous and skilful lover even with my limited experience in that field. Just because he was a god and older than pretty much everything hadn’t made that a given. Tatay said there were gods who were selfish assholes in bed that weren’t interested in learning how to please their partner. A god could be just as shitty a lover as a mortal.

It was now my opinion that I’d completely lucked out that Ravir’s price for aiding me in my vengeance was time in his bed. I could’ve sat next to him and just enjoyed his mouth on my fingers and my hands sweeping over his skin for hours. My ephemeral hand had glided over the majority of him, mapping him out, but I hadn’t touched his cock or balls with that hand. Yet. I’d get to it eventually I was sure.

His cock was a thing of beauty as far as I was concerned. He was now halfway to hardness again and that made me smile and a curl of anticipation twist around my balls. Gods, with the exception of Tatay, had a refraction time just like any other male. It was generally better than a mortal but not quite as good as an Incubus. That he was getting hard again less than ten minutes after his orgasm was stellar. My mind was willing and eager to go again but my dick still needed a little more time to recover from the awesome blow job. I couldn’t think of a better way to help that along than by giving him a little oral action of my own. I wasn’t a fan of swallowing like Ravir was but I did enjoy sucking cock and making my partner lose his mind from the pleasure.

I leaned over his cock and began pressing soft kisses over it. That awesome scent was even strong at his groin and sent another pleasurable tingle through my ass. He hummed his approval of the kisses and took two of my fingers into his mouth, sucking gently. I stroked the length of him, making sounds of appreciation in my throat as his cock firmed further at my touch. His balls nestled nicely in my palm and a tiny zing of pleasure wound through me at the idea that he’d soon be unloading his balls in my ass. I had no idea why the thought of him coming inside me was so damn hot and arousing. It just was.

I took his cock into my mouth loving the way he sucked stronger on my fingers briefly when I did that. Gods were typically well endowed and I certainly had a mouthful, which was awesome. I wasn’t a size queen or anything but I was looking forward to being stuffed full in the basest way possible. I started bobbing my head and working my tongue over his dick as I sucked. Ravir copied my motions on my fingers, sounds of pleasure coming from him. My cock finally began to firm as I sucked him but I resisted the urge to touch myself. I didn’t want to come until I had his dick in my ass.

Just because I didn’t want to touch myself and get over-excited didn’t mean my hands were unoccupied. I played with his balls and stroked his dick as I sucked him, sometimes teasing his hard nipples, which he seemed to like, too.

I’d never gotten the hang of taking a cock all the way down without gagging and I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t do that with Ravir. Tatay said it took practice and patience for most people but that some could never seem to work past that gag reflex. I was apparently one of those people with a really strong gag reflex so I didn’t try for more than I was sure I could handle. I didn’t think gagging on a dick was sexy although Tatay said some men were aroused by it and purposefully made their partner gag on their cock for their pleasure.

“As much as I’m enjoying you sucking my cock, Kheima, I need you to stop or I’m going to come in your lovely mouth in the next few minutes. I most definitely want to come in your mouth but not yet,” Ravir said in a lust heavy voice. “I want to sheath my cock in your ass. I want your fingers in my head as I do that. I need you to share with me how it feels to accept me into your body. Will you give me this, Kheima?”

The muscles in my ass fluttered in pleasured anticipation at Ravir’s words. There was something about the way he said it that was asking for a boon and demanding one at the same time. It was incredibly hot to me and pushed all kinds of buttons in my head. I backed off his cock and sat up because I wanted him in my ass before he came in my mouth, too.

“If you’re sure you want me to push my fingers in your head, I will,” I said with a bit of hesitance.

I’d never done that before in a sexual situation, earlier incident aside, and despite Ravir being a god, I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure it was safe for me to do that on purpose especially when I’d have his cock in my ass, which I was pretty sure was going to blow my mind and test my power over how deep my fingers went into his head.

“Very sure. It’ll likely test my control something fierce but there’s a deep need for me to feel what you do as I claim your ass. Maybe its part of the fettering Hylocereus mentioned. Whatever the case, it simply has to happen. Is laying on your back comfortable for you with your ephemeral arm? I need to stretch you open and want you to be as comfortable as possible while I do it so you’re focused only on the pleasure of my fingers and tongue in your ass.”

I didn’t know what the fettering was that either Ravir or Hylocereus mentioned and I’d need to ask about it later. It sounded vaguely important. Unfortunately for my curiosity, all my functioning brain cells were focused on getting Ravir’s cock in my ass and enjoying the ride I was sure he was going to give me.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I wouldn’t want to lay like that all night because my arm would probably go numb but for a few minutes it’s fine.”

“A few minutes? Oh no, Kheima. I’m going to take my time opening you. I want to have you writhing on my fingers, begging me to shove my cock into your ass. I could have you on elbows and knees to open you up but I selfishly want to see the expressions on your face as I play with your ass, massage your prostate and keep you on the edge of release until I’m ready to sheath myself in you.”

I licked my lips. That sounded toppy as fuck and I liked it. I had no idea I’d like that from a lover. Or maybe it was just from Ravir and, because he was a god, I had certain expectations of him being all commanding and demanding? Whatever the case, it was hot as hell.

“Get on your back and spread your legs for me, Kheima,” Ravir ordered when I said nothing and just stared at him with lust. “I’m eager to play with your hole.”

“It’s unexpectedly hot to have you be so bossy. I didn’t think I’d like that,” I said as I positioned myself as Ravir wanted.

Ravir moved to kneel between my legs, his hands resting on the insides of my thighs subtly holding my legs apart, which was hot as hell. He fixed me with a serious look even as his hands stroked over my skin gently.

“If I do anything you don’t like or feel uncomfortable with, say so. Being a god doesn’t give me the right to do whatever I want to a lover if they’re not into it. Or at least that’s my feelings on the matter.”

“Oh, I’m into this. I just didn’t expect to be into getting bossed around in bed. I’ll tell you if I don’t like something or it hurts or whatever. I’m not afraid to speak up even if the person I’m doing that too is a god.”

“I find that utterly refreshing and thrilling. It relaxes something within me and makes me feel like I can be more... me. Thank you for that gift, Kheima,” Ravir said in a soft tone.

I reached out with my ephemeral hand and easily caressed his jaw without needing to sit up because of its length. Ravir turned his head a little and kissed my palm before looking at me, his gaze holding mine. Something happened the moment our eyes locked. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as we stared intently at each other, unmoving. It felt like a deep connection that both was and wasn’t sexual was being forged between us although neither one of us said a word or so much as twitched a muscle.

I should’ve probably been scared witless at what was suddenly happening between us but I wasn’t. It felt right and like it was destined to happen. It thrilled and aroused me at the same time to feel the connection happening. I couldn’t have looked away from Ravir if my life depended on it and I doubted Ravir could’ve looked away from me. Not that I got the sense that either of us was interested in looking away. Ravir wasn’t doing anything as far as I could tell with regards to godly power to make this sensation flow through me. I wasn’t doing anything either. Whatever it was that was happening, it was apparently too powerful a sensation to deny even for a god.

My heart was beating so hard and fast it was a wonder Ravir couldn’t hear it. It sounded as loud as a bass drum to me. I could easily hear Ravir’s heartbeat, too, and it was pounding away like mine. There were odd stutters and skips in the rhythm of both our hearts as I listened and stared deeply into Ravir’s eyes. I felt a little awed when I realized that our heartbeats gradually settled into a perfect syncopation with each other. This was some freaky but exciting shit happening.

“What’s happening?” I asked in a whisper still not frightened like logic said I probably should be. “You feel this connection, too, right?”

“Yes, I feel it. I’ve felt it most of the day. It’s the fettering getting stronger. Fettering a god is very rare and usually only happens with the Mage-born and their destined god. This feeling is heavier, possessive and more powerful than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s a little frightening in its intensity but comforting at the same time. As much as I feel like I absolutely need to continue there will be lasting consequences for both of us if we do. It’s no small thing to fetter a god nor to be fetter to one.”

I could hear the conflict in his voice and see it in his eyes. He was offering me the chance to stop this fettering thing happening even though I could plainly see he wanted it to continue. It wasn’t just about either of us being hard as a rock and horny as fuck for each other. This fettering thing was beyond just a sexual connection. I was absolutely sure it would make the sex between us unbelievably good, but that was just a side benefit. I actually felt a little panic at the thought of refusing the bond growing between us.

“You need to be the one to back away, Kheima. I can’t. I’m not that strong. No god is once they’ve accepted being fettered because it is a precious divine gift few receive,” Ravir said in a rough voice with an edge of urgency. “I declare our deal complete. You owe me nothing further. Leave me while I still have the inner strength to allow it.”

“No,” I said with a firmness that even surprised me. “This is what is supposed to be. I know it and you know it. Hylocereus said he brought us together for a reason but that the choice of what would happen beyond us meeting was ours alone. I choose to stay.”

Ravir’s heart sped up briefly at my words. I could see him struggling against himself. It was fascinating, incredibly hot and made me feel wildly powerful. I also felt like doing anything other than staying with Ravir would be the wrong choice in this situation. I’d made a lot of big, life altering decisions today but this felt like the most important one of all. And the easiest. Fine, I didn’t know what being fettered was but I knew with absolute faith that Hylocereus wouldn’t do anything to harm me and only wanted to see me happy.

“You will be mine and only mine if we continue. A fettered god does not share. I will be possessive, demanding and greedy. Likely high-handed and egotistical, too. Final warning, Kheima. Leave while I have the strength to let you go because I can’t find it within me to reject the fettering I’m being offered. I want it like I’ve not wanted anything in my very, very long memory.”

“No,” I said softly as I slid my hand up to cup the back of his head and pulled him down to kiss me. “I’m claiming what’s mine to claim.”

He could’ve easily resisted my pulling him into a kiss. He was a god and had more physical strength in his baby finger than I had in my entire body and then some. He let me draw him down anyway. There was the tiniest shred of something I thought looked like panic and fear in his eyes but there was also excitement and joy. There was probably a spark of all that in mine as well if I was being completely honest with myself. I felt it to the depths of my soul that I was doing the right thing, the only thing that was possible for both of us, in this instance.

“You will fetter a god just as I will fetter you to me if we continue,” Ravir said his lips inches from mine. “It’s extremely unwise to tempt a god with what we want and I know you know that. We’re very bad at resisting what we crave and right now I crave you to a ridiculous degree for more than the brief physical pleasure of joining my body with yours.”

His words only made me surer than ever that what I was doing was right.

“I grew up around gods. I know what they are like probably better than any mortal alive. This fettering-whatever-thing will be the best damn thing to ever happen to either of us. In your heart you know that like I do. I’m a bit scared and confused but I got your back, Ravir. I will always have your back if you let me,” I said as I tugged him those last few inches and kissed him.

Ravir groaned deep in his throat and it was like a damn burst within him. His godhood flared out from his body a good ten inches bathing me in the golden glow. I gasped at how good it felt as well as the power of it. His cock rubbed against mine, the friction delicious but not what I truly wanted from him. I sunk my fingers into his head and broke the kiss as a dizzying rush of desire from Ravir washed through me adding to mine. Lust slammed into me like a rampaging dragon making my cock throb and my balls ache. I suddenly needed to have him inside me more than I needed to draw my next breath.

“Fuck me. Fuck me right now. Shove your cock in my ass and don’t you dare stop fucking me until you’ve emptied every last drop of spunk in your balls inside me,” I demanded, the need to have him inside me undeniable.

“I’ll hurt you. You’re not even close to being ready,” Ravir said his voice strained even as he ground his cock against mine.

“Use your power and make me ready. Do it. Now,” I commanded as thrust my hips up against him. “You can feel how much I want this. I know you can. I can feel how much you want to do it. Give us both what we want. Now, Ravir.”

“Such a demanding Fury,” Ravir said with a fierce, possessive look in his eyes. “I like it.”

“Yes, I am. Fuck. Me. Now.”

Ravir reached between us and positioned his cock against my hole. I didn’t feel much of anything happen except a little loosening of the muscles of my pucker and a bit of a ticklish slide of what I assumed was oil trickling from my hole. He held my eyes with his as he pushed in and I felt that odd tingle in my ass again as he breached me. There was a tiny bit of a burn as he sheathed himself inside me in one smooth motion but I’d done worse to myself when playing with dildoes and being a bit impatient to have something in my hole. He stopped moving only when his groin was pressed tight to my ass. We were both breathing hard, our hearts pounding.

“Perfect,” I said in a low voice as the strangely intense urgency to have him in me levelled off a tiny bit. It was still a huge need but now the desire to feel him fill me with his seed started to climb.

“Yes, it most certainly is,” Ravir said as he slipped an arm under me before sitting back on his haunches, pulling me up with him so I was seated in his lap, his cock shifting a little deeper in my ass.

I pressed my forehead to his, draped my arms over his shoulders, wrapped my legs around his hips and just wallowed in the pleasure washing through me from multiple sources at once. I’d already known I really liked things in my ass during sex. Ravir’s cock stuffing my hole was way better than anything I’d played with. Feeling his arousal sliding against mine was nearly spiritual. His divine aura bathed me from head to toe feeling like he was holding me comfortingly tight and safe yet erotically stroking my entire body at the same time. I immediately adored the sensation.

“By all that’s holy you’re even more exquisite than I thought you’d be. I am not going to give a good showing of my skills as a lover and I truly apologize for that,” Ravir said in a lust heavy voice as his cock twitched in my ass.

“Do you hear me complaining?” I panted out as I squirmed on his cock, that weird tingle in my ass getting stronger and demanding that I move; that I fuck myself on his cock.

I now felt like I almost had an itch inside me and his dick was the only thing capable of scratching it and his come the only thing that would soothe it. I pulled myself a little off his cock before sinking back down and couldn’t have stopped the moan of pleasure from leaving me if I’d tried my hardest. Ravir groaned and his hands settled on my hips, tightening briefly before he began to raise and lower me in strong, measured strokes.

I moaned at the sensations from Ravir as he fucked me, filled me. I could feel tight, slick heat around my cock and the absolute pleasure he was taking in being buried balls deep in my ass. He also adored having me wrapped around his body, clinging to him like a vine. I loved the thickness of him stretching my hole and the enticing, arousing scent of him that made me want to stay so close to him so that I could keep breathing it in every time I inhaled. The whole experience was intoxicating and we’d barely started fucking.

“What the hell is that sensation you’re feeling in your ass? It’s maddening but feels incredibly arousing,” Ravir said as he moved me, fucking me hard and deep.

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Just fuck me,” I demanded as I dived through the utterly glorious sensation of our combined arousal and pleasure.

Ravir moved me effortlessly. The motion of him in and out of my ass combined with the ghostly feel of tight, slick heat over my cock was unbelievably good. The weird itchy spot inside me was a bit distracting but also felt so very good every time the head of his cock rubbed over it. I knew it wasn’t my prostate because that felt totally different and massively arousing when his dick pressed against it. I’d played enough with my prostate while jerking off to tell the difference.

I could feel my orgasm rushing at me just as I could feel Ravir’s building through the connection I’d made with my ephemeral hand. He could feel me barrelling to my peak, too, which was incredibly arousing for both of us, putting us into a quickly building loop of pleasure. The itch suddenly vanished and I felt something within me relax and open as I teetered on the very edge of release. My eyes went wide when I finally realized what was happening in my body.

“Stop! Rock! Rock! Fuck, rock!” I all but shrieked as I tried to force myself to pull away from Ravir even though it was the very last thing I wanted to do.

My body betrayed me and was having none of that. My legs pulled my ass flush with Ravir’s groin and my inner muscles clenched his cock tight within me. I moaned in a combination of ecstasy and frustration as my ass strongly clenched and released over his dick as if trying to milk his seed from him. He groaned heavily and his hands gripped my hips with bruising force, holding me firmly on his cock. His arousal crashed against mine as he struggled to do what I demanded. I knew he could feel how close I was, which was boosting his desire, because of the connection through my ephemeral hand. His aura flared hard with arousal when my ass squeezed down on him again and that tipped me over the edge.

I shouted as pleasure filled me and my cock spurted. My ass gripped and released his cock with every jet of come that left my balls to paint his belly and chest making him shiver and his aura throb in counterpoint to my cock. My breath heaved in my chest and I wanted nothing more than to have him follow me in release and unload his balls inside me. The need to make that happen was incredibly strong. I wriggled against his hold, part of me insisting that I do whatever was necessary to make him come inside me and part of me trying to stop that from happening even if it was what I desperately needed.

I managed to pull a little off his cock before my body betrayed me again and sank back down where it wanted to be. That small movement was enough to position his cock just right to slide home where my body believed he was meant to be. My breath shuddered out of me as a spark of deep desire and overwhelming rightness filled me. Everything in me relaxed and I sank a tiny bit further onto his cock. Ravir groaned again and his cock began throbbing as he shot his seed into me. I knew I should pull away but I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t make myself pull my fingers from his head either because everything was too intensely good. This was perfection.

Feeling Ravir’s cock throb with release inside me was incredible and easily one of the best things I’d ever experienced. It felt so right it was frightening. Once Ravir’s balls finished unloading into me my hand fell limply from his head. I was exhausted but extraordinarily pleased on a deeply primal level.

I was also in so much potential trouble right now. Ravir was probably going to be mad as hell and I couldn’t blame him one bit. I was mad at myself for not cluing in to what was happening sooner. Dad had talked to me about this, warned me to watch for the signs and act accordingly and I’d failed miserably. I pressed my face into his neck, panting softly and wanting to be close to him for a few seconds longer, as I thought furiously about what the hell to do now.

“How did I hurt you, Kheima? I did my best to stop and I failed,” Ravir said distress in his voice. “Tell me what I did wrong and it won’t happen again.”

I shook my head and forced myself off his cock, a tiny whimper leaving my throat as he slid free. It was rude and kinda gross but I pushed hard with my inner muscles, forcing as much of his seed from me as I could to puddle on the sheets under my ass. It was almost a physical pain to expel his seed when my body was insisting that inside me was where it needed to be. If I thought my parents were going to kill me over the whole vengeance on the Pepsinae Queen thing, this had the potential to be so much worse.

Ravir’s hands remained on my hips, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles over the edges of my belly. My hands were still on his shoulders, my legs around his waist. There was probably only six inches of space between us but it felt like a yawning chasm. Instinct was pushing me to climb back onto his cock to get him to replace the seed I’d pushed out. That really couldn’t happen even if his dick wasn’t softening.

“No, you didn’t do a damn thing wrong. This is all on me. I’m sorry, Ravir. I....” I stared at the small space between us, looking at the pool of his seed between my legs and feeling like it was so very, very wrong that I’d expelled what I could even when I logically knew it was the right thing to do. I almost felt like crying at the waste.

“Then why are you so upset? Why did you use your stop word? I could feel your panic just as I could feel an absolute sense of rightness from you. What happened? Talk to me,” he demanded.

“That weird sensation in my ass that you could feel? I figured out what it was but it was too late to stop. I was too far gone. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t realize what was happening.”

“Stop what? Too far gone into what? Do what on purpose? What happened?”

“Letting you in. I didn’t mean to. I swear it on my very soul, Ravir. Dad told me about it and to watch for the signs but it never clicked in my head what was happening until it already happened. You’re probably going to be really, really mad about it and you’ve got every right to be. All I can do is apologize.”

Ravir reached out and tipped my face up to his. “I’m unbelievably confused right now and you’re not helping to clear anything up for me. Are you upset that I had my cock in you and are now regretting that decision? Is that what you mean by letting me in? Or was it sharing the intimate mental connection? Was that too much for you? I did warn you that gods have incredibly strong appetites.”

“What? Gods, no. Your cock inside me was awesome. Better than awesome,” I sighed. “This is going to sound really weird but I swear it’s the absolute truth. You smelled amazing to me every time you got close to me today. Every time I’d catch a solid whiff, I’d feel this really pleasurable tingle in my ass and sometimes my nipples would go rock hard. That was clue number one. The sudden, overwhelming need to have you inside me when you were between my legs was clue number two. The final piece that came too late to stop myself was feeling my body opening to you.

“My body recognized you as being a very good reproductive match with me. It’s some sort of body chemistry thing for Chimeric Demons according to Tatay. I freaked out because my body opened my womb to you and I couldn’t stop it from happening. Usually a male Chimeric Demon can control that and decide when he’d like to try to become pregnant. But sometimes nature decides for us like it just did to me.”

Ravir stared at me for several seconds. He opened his mouth and then closed it without saying a damn word and stared at me hard again. He didn’t look mad but sometimes a god could be utterly seething and you’d never know it until the smiting started. I didn’t think he’d smear me into a barely recognizable stain on the sheets but I wasn’t entirely discounting that it could happen. In my mind I’d committed a gross breach of etiquette and it was entirely possible Ravir would see it that way too. Gods were usually really cautious about getting someone pregnant.

“I didn’t realize gods were in the pool of candidates for that sort of thing for your species. Although, I suppose I should’ve made the assumption that we are since your younger brother is the child of two gods. If that’s the sort of thing that happened between your parents. Are you sure about this? How do you know that your womb opened to me?”

“I’m sure. I felt it relax and open. We’re actually taught to open our womb to a partner otherwise it wouldn’t unless nature takes the choice from us. It’s also extremely pleasurable to have something slide home there. Or at least I find it pleasurable. I’ve played around with toys breaching my womb but those had absolutely nothing on the pleasure of feeling your cock slide home and your come filling me.

“Dad said he only felt the signs of nature taking over when Baba and Tatay were close together and when they both fucked him. Either one of them on their own wasn’t enough or right or whatever for his body to decide for him. He felt it was an aberration as he’d never heard of two people being required to trigger that auto-response in a male Chimeric Demon. He also happened to be in a fertile period at the time and thinks that had something to do with it, too.”

“Are you fertile right now?” Ravir asked cautiously.

“No, I’m not fertile now. Or at least I shouldn’t be for another month and a bit. There is a slim chance that I could spontaneously become fertile because that’s a thing for us when nature grabs the reins away from us. That’s what happened to Dad, Baba and Tatay but that probably had a lot to do with Tatay being the God of Fertility. The spontaneous fertility thing would need a couple of hours to force my body to release an egg ahead of schedule but considering that I’ve been around you and close to you all day, inhaling your pheromones and priming my body to be bred by you, that ship has probably already sailed. That’s why I was so frantic to stop when I realized what was happening.”

“Could you have conceived already? Would you even know if you had?” Ravir asked as he moved his hands a little, his thumbs now stroking over my belly and making me feel a little giddy.

I was shocked at how much I liked the idea of being pregnant with Ravir’s baby. I was scared at the prospect of giving birth but at the same time something in me clung viciously tight to the thought of my belly expanding with our child and later nursing him or her while cradled in Ravir’s arms. I fiercely wanted that and it frightened me how strongly I was reacting to the idea.

“I dunno how long conception takes. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Is it faster for gods? Does divinity even matter in how it happens? I wouldn’t know on my own for a few weeks until symptoms started, if they started. Some people don’t really show any signs until they’re well into the pregnancy.

“You’re taking this a whole lot better than I thought you would. I thought you’d be mad. I’m mad at myself for not realizing what was happening sooner. I’m mad that I had to pull off your dick immediately when I’d have preferred to stay right where I was. I’m irrationally mad that I felt it was necessary to push as much of your seed from my body as I reasonably could because I liked having that inside me.”

Ravir smiled, obviously very pleased. “Mad? No. Intensely flattered? Yes. You do realize that there is a fairly simple solution to this series of problems? You or I or perhaps both of us can ask Ji-Sun not only if you’re pregnant but to ensure that you don’t become pregnant. Because he’s the God of fertility, if he doesn’t allow it, it won’t happen regardless of what your body wants. Assuming, of course, that you’d like to continue being intimate with me. I did release you from any further payment for our deal and just because we have the opportunity to be fettered to each other doesn’t mean it has to happen.”

I chuckled. “Tatay’s intervention is the ultimate birth control. It’s not really a conversation I want to have with Tatay right now but I very much do want to keep being intimate with you. I haven’t changed my mind about the fettering either. Being with you feels right. Incredibly right. It feels like this is my purpose for being. But, throwing an unexpected baby into the mix right now would be way too much on my already very full plate with everything else that’s landed there today.”

Ravir gave me a very frank look and the barest hint of pink tinged his cheeks. He licked his lips and looked a bit unsure, which I thought was hot as hell. He drew in a steadying breath before speaking.

“I knew having sex with you would make the bond of fettering stronger and develop quicker. I don’t regret that in the slightest regardless of what happens between us next. I never expected to be in a position to be fettered since that requires a Mage-born partner and I didn’t think I was a candidate for one. I’m deeply enjoying and invested in the way being fettered to you feels. It feels... right.

“I suggest we ask Ji-Sun now to keep you from getting pregnant until we’re ready for that. I’d prefer not to have a small worry in the back of either of our heads about you conceiving because your body wants us to make a beautiful baby together whenever we have sex. I can already tell that I’m going to be very weak against saying no to you especially when it’s something I desire as well.”

I stared at Ravir in shock, a nearly euphoric rush speeding through me at his words. “You’d want to have a baby with me?”

“Not immediately, no, although if it is a done deal right now I’m not going to be overly upset. You’re beautiful now and I know you’ll be stunning when you’re heavy with our child. But I already know that I’m far too greedy and selfish to want to share your attention if I don’t have to. Maybe in a hundred years I’ll be feeling more generous on that score. I did warn you that I’d be greedy and possessive if we continued.”

This was not going at all the way I thought it would. I wasn’t mad about it but I was more than a bit confused at the easy way Ravir was just rolling with and accepting everything.

“Why are you just... going with this? We only met this morning and have had full on penetrative sex once yet I could be carrying your baby right now and you’re just... okay with that? I know there’s an incredibly strong physical connection between us but I don’t know how I feel on an emotional level. Everything is happening so fast.”

“Our baby,” Ravir corrected softly. “It’s because I’ve accepted the divine gift of becoming fettered to you. As horrible as it sounds to say it, I don’t love you. Not yet. That will grow and bloom as long as neither of us rejects the fettering before it becomes an unbreakable bond. When we come to love one another, the fettering will be complete. Being fettered always leads to being god-marked although the timeframe for that varies.”

I blew out a breath. This was not at all how I envisioned my day going. Ravir pulled my hands from his shoulders and even drew my ephemeral hand into his. They didn’t all fit between his hands but the gesture touched me deeply and made my throat tight with emotion.

“How long the bond takes is individual to each couple. For some its weeks or months, others take years. I strongly suspect that you could fairly easily wheedle out of Hylocereus the information about what sort of timeline it would be for us if you feel you must know. I’m content to let it happen as it will. I agree with what you said earlier in that being fettered with you will be the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“This is a lot to take in. Today has been one major incident after another. I think I’ve hit my limit on what I can reasonably handle in one day. Can I be completely selfish, ask Tatay to make sure I’m not pregnant now, that I can’t get pregnant for the next while, and then maybe pass out briefly so I don’t have to deal with any more sudden oh shit moments for longer than two hours at a go?”

Ravir smiled softly at me, leaned in and pressed a light kiss on my lips. “I think that’s a stellar plan.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

I wasn’t pregnant and I had mixed feelings about that. Logically I knew that was for the best for not only me and Ravir but for any potential children we could’ve had. Ravir and I barely knew one another. It would be massively unfair to bring an innocent child into the mix at this point. At the same time I was highly disappointed and even a little upset that I wasn’t carrying his baby. Tatay said that was hormones talking as my body had gone into a spontaneous fertile period. At my request, even though it made me ache inside and felt utterly wrong, Tatay made it impossible for me to get pregnant until I told him otherwise.

Baba had shocked all of us by congratulating Ravir and I when we told him about being fettered. He wasn’t just saying it to make nice either. He genuinely was happy for us. Tatay, Dad, Kyrieleison and I were visibly confused. We’d expected Baba to be mad as hell, maybe some earth movements, possibly a little low level smiting to vent his anger. Ravir was guarded as if he didn’t trust Baba’s reaction and I couldn’t blame him one bit.

Baba said he was very aware of what fettering was like in a general sense because his parents had that connection and he’d grown up listening to the story of how Grandpa Rhas-Khan had needed to work really hard to convince Grandpa Eilam that it was a soul deep connection they had and not just a physical one. Grandpa Eilam was distrustful at first that Grandpa Rhas-Khan truly loved him and had from the first time they met when Grandpa Eilam was just a child.

Grandpa Rhas-Khan waited for twenty years for Grandpa Eilam to come back to him in the Abyss, not taking any lovers in that time even though he knew that some of the possibilities he’d seen that first time were of Grandpa Eilam _not_ becoming the love of his immortal life. Or at least that version of Grandpa Eilam not following that path. That was the strength of the fettering. I hadn’t known that about my grandparents. Baba respected that and it made him very happy that I could have the sort of connection and love for myself.

Baba did tell Ravir that if he hurt me, there was going to be wrath like he’d never seen rain down on his head and Baba had even opened his eyes all the way to stare at Ravir when he said that. Ravir had subtly shifted his stance, readying for an attack, when Baba stared at him like that. I had no idea why though. People said Baba’s direct gaze was unnerving but I just didn’t see it.

Dad seemed to sense that I was both relieved and upset at not being pregnant and not able to get pregnant for the next while. He took me aside and said there were options available to me that could ease that aching emptiness in me he knew I was feeling. Dad said sometimes our body would be unreasonable about reproduction when we were with someone our body deemed the best reproductive match. There were ways to trick our body into feeling like we’d gotten pregnant for that short fertile period so it stopped trying to constantly get us pregnant. He said this was a pretty common issue among Chimeric Demons and we’d developed a way to deal with it if avoiding an excellent reproductive match wasn’t an option.

I was not okay with avoiding Ravir especially when it wouldn’t really work. I could not see him during my regular fertile times but we already knew that my body would probably spontaneously force itself into a fertile period if I was around him for a whole day. We could try to cut our time together to just a few hours at a go but neither of us was going to be happy with that plan. I liked being around him and I was confident he liked being around me. Fine, we both had duties that took up a large chunk of our day away from each other, but I was really looking forward to spending my nights with him. Then there was the whole fettering thing on top of all that and that drew us together like iron and a lodestone.

Dad said the easiest way to fool my body was to push a special toy Chimeric Demons had invented into my womb as part of foreplay. When Ravir orgasmed inside me his seed would be absorbed by the toy making it expand and making my body think it was pregnant. The toy would eventually shrink back to normal after about two days and a little pushing by me would expel it from my body. My body would be satisfied that it had “reproduced” and I’d have control again for a few weeks over whether I opened my womb or not to Ravir since my body would think it needed a “rest period” before getting pregnant again.

Dad said if the urge was really strong to be pregnant and that one insertion didn’t do the trick, keep the toy inside me and have Ravir fuck me three or four times over the course of several hours, which I’d totally be interested in doing. The toy would absorb his seed and get a lot bigger than with just one fucking. Dad said I’d actually look pregnant as the toy expanded even more in me from multiple loads. He warned me that I’d feel uncomfortably full but satisfied at the same time.

He also said not to overdo it with how many times Ravir filled me as gods produced more come than any mortals and I could easily find myself with a much larger toy than I was comfortable with. I got the idea that Dad found that out the hard way from his expression but at the same time, I think he was happy about that discovery going by the little smile that came and went quickly on his lips.

He said that with the larger, slowly growing toy in my body, I’d slip into birthing mode and need to push the toy from me as if I really was giving birth. I wasn’t too sure about that idea but he said if my body refused to be fooled by the initial “pregnancy”, going through the birth phase always worked and had the added benefit of suppressing the urge to be bred through several fertile cycles. Dad also said that the size of the toy at that point wouldn’t be as big as an actual baby as long as Ravir didn’t fuck me more than four times in one go but that it would still be a good bit of a stretch to push the toy from me and that Ravir would likely need to help me relax enough to push the toy from me. He suggested that I not start with that unless absolutely necessary.

Dad had a few low words with Tatay and the next thing I knew I was being handed a beautifully carved box. Dad smiled softly at me and said I should probably use it sooner than later to get rid of the ache I was feeling. He also said that I might enjoy the toy for more than its practical use and to test out the expansion of it in a large bowl of warm water to see just how big it would get. He then hustled everyone together, reminded me that we were having a family dinner at Greatpa’s palace on Friday and they left.

“What’s in the box, Kheima?” Ravir asked as he approached me.

“Apparently a solution to my stupid body desperately wanting you to knock me up when that’s not in anyone’s best interest right now.”

Ravir raised his eyebrow at me. I launched into explaining what Dad told me and felt a little zip of excitement when desire sparked to life in Ravir’s eyes.

“Let’s see what this wonder looks like,” Ravir said when I finished.

I opened the box and was underwhelmed to say the least. I’d been expecting something... more. The toy was black with gold speckles and not even the size of a chicken egg. I’d have said it was roughly the size of a pheasant egg if I was being generous. I’d have no problem at all stuffing that inside me with barely any preparation. I asked Ravir for a large bowl of warm water and put the toy in it to see how big it would get and how long that would take like Dad suggested.

At first nothing seemed to happen. After several minutes I noticed the toy slowly expanding and the amount of water in the bowl shrinking. It took a good half an hour and a refill of the bowl by Ravir before the toy seemed to have reached maximum capacity and didn’t get any bigger. I licked my lips and swallowed hard as I stared at the toy.

That was a really, really big toy. I was both a bit scared to have something that size in me and excited to have something that size in me. Pleasurable flutters in my ass happened and my womb softly ached erotically when I thought of being filled instead with Ravir’s baby. As much as I liked the way that thought made my body react, I needed to get that shit under control now.

I picked up the toy and it filled my entire hand from the base of my palm to the tips of my fingers. It felt pretty heavy and surprisingly firm, too, although there was a good amount of give to it. It wasn’t hard like an egg, which I was relieved to find out. As I thought about having the toy inside me, feeling it expand and then needing to push it from my body, my nipples tightened and my cock twitched in interest. I bit my lip to hold back the wanting moan that tried to escape as I imagined the fullness and stretch of the toy inside me while Ravir caressed my belly, fucking into me hard. Gods, that was a hot mental image.

“Did you want to test this out now?” Ravir asked in a husky voice.

“Yeah. Can you, ummm, dry it out or whatever so it shrinks down to a manageable size? There’s no way this can fit in me right now.”

The egg toy was suddenly back to its original size which was something I could handle easily. Ravir moved us to his bedroom in an eye blink. I put the toy on the table by the bed and wasn’t surprised in the least when our clothes vanished.

“Get on your elbows and knees, Kheima, and we’ll settle this where it needs to be,” Ravir said with heavy tones of lust in his voice.

I did what I was told, excitement curling hard through me. Ravir made a sound of approval in his throat and knelt behind me, his hands caressing my ass, thighs and back in slow sweeps that felt heavenly. He leaned over me, his half-hard cock brushing against my balls. A little laugh that turned into a groan escaped me when that was all it took for me to go hard as stone and my womb to open to him.

My breath caught in my throat at the touch of his fingers over my third arm. There was no hesitancy in his movements. He was touching it like it was just another part of my body, which it was. But nobody I’d been intimate with had ever touched my ephemeral hand and had actually taken great pains not to touch it. Having Ravir touch my arm like he was untied a tight knot I hadn’t been aware of having within me.

“You really don’t give a shit about touching my ephemeral hand or having it touch you, do you? It’s just an arm and hand to you.”

“Yes? Does it bother you to have me touch it? You said it was more sensitive. I’ll stop if you want me to,” Ravir said as his hand stilled on my arm but didn’t pull away.

“No! Nobody I’ve been intimate with has touched it or wanted me to touch them with it. Fine, it’s not like there’s a large number of people on that list, but that’s not the point. I like it. Touch it, and me, as much as you want. I insist.”

“It pleases me greatly that I’m the first to touch you as no one else has and to receive touches from you that haven’t been bestowed on anyone else. You’re spoiling a god with your generosity, Kheima. That deserves a reward.”

Ravir moved back and I turned my head to see what he was doing. He sat back on his heels and his hands caressed my ass before gently spreading my cheeks apart. He leaned down and placed a feather-light kiss on my pucker followed by the tiniest flick of his tongue. My breath shuddered out of me and my dick throbbed.

“Nobody’s ever done that to me either. Do I get a reward for giving you that first, too?”

Ravir burst out laughing and squeezed my ass. “Absolutely.”

I grinned and then gasped when Ravir tongued my hole. Gods, that felt good. He licked and sucked me, wriggling his tongue into me while stroking and tugging gently on my balls with one hand, the other holding one of my cheeks apart so he had access to my ass. I dropped my chest to the bed and moved my hands back, spreading myself open for him. He hummed approval and pressed his mouth tight to my hole, tongue fucking me. His now free hand stroked lightly over my cock sending shivers of pleasure up my spine.

I needed to touch him. I needed to feel him and give him pleasure just like he was giving me pleasure. I moved my ephemeral hand under my body and between my legs so I could wrap my fingers around his cock. Due to the length of that arm, it was an easy reach. Ravir groaned softly at the touch before sucking strongly on my hole.

Ravir feasted on my ass, licking, kissing and tonguing my hole until I was squirming and shaking my hips, needing more but wanting the erotic sensations to continue. Every now and again he’d stop fondling my balls and slide a finger or two into my ass, pumping me slowly and gently stretching me open. He stroked my dick randomly seeming to know exactly when to back off or slow down so I didn’t get too excited and blow my load before he was ready to let me. His cock was hot and hard in my hand and I loved the way it felt as I stroked him. A giddy rush would zing through me every time I thought about taking him in my ass again.

“I think you’re ready for the toy. How do we do this so it’s where it needs to be? This is a first for me, which is more thrilling than you can possibly know.”

“Just slide it in apparently. When my womb opens it blocks off anything going anywhere else but into my womb. The opening is just above my prostate. It felt really, really good when your dick slid into it earlier and the toy will probably feel good, too. You’ve made me pretty damn excited from eating my ass so I might not be able to keep from coming when you put the toy inside me,” I warned.

“If you come when I push the toy into you I’ll just need to work you back up into a frenzy before I stuff my cock into you. I need you to come for me while my cock is inside you.”

My breath shuddered out of me and my cock throbbed almost painfully at that. Ravir sounded so damn toppy when he said shit like that. I liked it a lot.

“I’m going to put the toy in you now. You should be fine to take it as I’ve opened you well, lubed your ass and the toy is not that large. Tell me if you feel uncomfortable or need more stretching. I’ll be more than happy to do that.”

Ravir pressed the egg-shaped toy to my relaxed hole. There was only the barest hint of resistance as the largest width pushed against my opening before it slipped easily inside me. I groaned softly as Ravir continued to push the toy deeper into me with two fingers. When it was as far as he could push it he withdrew his fingers and caressed my ass. An automatic flutter of my inner muscles pulled the toy deeper to settle in my womb. It felt strangely comforting on some weird level.

“Comfortable?” he asked.

“Yeah. I can barely feel it but at the same time it feels... right. Are you going to take me from behind?” I asked as arousal twisted through me at the idea.

“As erotic as that would be, no, not this time. I want to watch the pleasure wash through you as we fuck. Turn to your back, Kheima.”

I quickly moved to lie on my back and grinned when I managed to keep hold of Ravir’s dick as I did it, making him groan softly from the feel of my hand sliding around his cock. My ephemeral arm was very mobile because of its length and double elbows. Ravir wasted no time and moved his hips forward, the head of his dick brushing against my pucker, teasing me. I tugged gently on his cock, urging him to push into me, the need to have him inside me suddenly bursting through me.

Ravir slid into me slowly. It was massively erotic and frustrating at the same time because I desperately wanted him buried to the hilt inside me immediately. When he was finally balls deep in my ass, the motion pushed the toy even further into me sending pleasure streaking up my spine and made me arch against him. He held himself still above me and I could clearly hear his heart pounding away like he’d run for miles. He was breathing faster, too, and he closed his eyes for a few seconds. Tendrils of golden aura flickered from random points of his body and a ridiculous sense of pride filled me when I realized that he was struggling for control because it felt so good for him to be where he was.

I twined my legs with his, slid my arms around him pulling him close and carded my ephemeral hand through his hair before slipping my fingers delicately into his head linking us together. His eyes popped open and his aura flared hard, spreading a good twelve inches from him and enveloping me in the golden light. I moaned at the almost too good sensations now flooding me and my hips jerked up, taking his cock a little deeper. My dick was trapped between our bellies, the rough friction erotic.

“Gods, this feels better than amazing. I love all of it. Your cock inside me. Your aura seeping into me. The incredible sensation of your arousal twisting with mine. Fuck me hard, Ravir. Don’t hold back. You can feel what I do right now so you’ll know when it’s too much for me. Give me what I want; what I need,” I demanded fiercely.

Ravir’s eyes shone like gems and his arousal surged making me arch against him and hold him tighter to me. His cock twitched inside me making mine respond in kind. I almost immediately wanted to come but at the same time my orgasm felt far away.

“As my Fury wishes it,” he said with godly tones in his voice that was hotter than hell.

Ravir set a hard pace, his cock pounding into me like I’d told him I wanted and needed. I clung to him, doing whatever I could to wring more pleasure from the encounter. Ravir appreciated my efforts, his arousal winding higher with every thrust into me, spinning mine tighter. We almost fed off each other’s desire, panting and groaning together as we chased our orgasms.

“Need you to come,” Ravir demanded against my lips. “I want your ass to milk the come from my balls.”

Oh, fuck that was hot. I nodded and started to move my hand from his back to jerk myself off. As good as it felt and as much as I wanted the pleasure to continue, my body was more than ready to receive his seed.

“No. Don’t touch yourself. Come because it feels so good to have my cock filling your hole,” Ravir ordered.

I groaned as a bolt of lust went straight to my balls at his words. I really never would’ve guessed that I’d like being told what to do in the bedroom. Or maybe it was just Ravir and the situation we were in. He wasn’t trying to be all dominating. He was just letting himself be his godly self with me and he found it wildly erotic and freeing which, in turn, made arousal surge through me. I could feel his orgasm approaching through the link and how hard he was trying to hold back on blowing his load because he wanted me to find my pleasure first so he could wallow in that before letting his own drown him. That was erotic as fuck to me.

I focused on the combined lust and need swirling through me, letting it sweep me away. My balls drew up and intense pleasure burned through me as I came. I groaned and held Ravir tight with what would be bruising force to another mortal. I couldn’t hurt him if I tried but I easily felt his lust spike from my near death grip on him as I rode my orgasm. My cock spurted almost painfully hard smearing my seed between our bellies. Ravir continued to fuck me through my orgasm and I loved it.

“Now. Need your come now,” I demanded.

“As my Fury commands,” Ravir said between sharp, panting breaths, his control now razor thin.

He slammed his hips home with enough force that I knew I was going to be sore later but I didn’t care because it was exactly what I wanted and needed. His orgasm barrelled through him and his aura spread a little further, the two things together making me gasp and moan at how incredible they felt together. The weight of his godhood was heavy and pressed against me at the same time that if felt like it filled me with warm, soothing light. I utterly loved the sensation of his come spurting hard into my womb. It felt like it went on forever but wasn’t long enough at the same time.

Ravir was breathing just as hard as I was, sweat slicking both of us. He started to pull back and I tightened my legs around his. I knew he could easily get free of me but he stopped moving and gave me a quizzical look. I still had my fingers in his head and was reluctant to slide them free just yet. I was selfishly enjoying the slowly decreasing waves of pleasure from him that sometimes crashed into mine, sometimes combined with mine and sometimes flowed in counterpoint to mine. The link between us combined with his godly aura made the post orgasm bliss last stupidly long and I loved the way that felt. I frowned when his softened cock slipped from my ass and he pulled his aura back into himself. I reluctantly withdrew my fingers from his head with a regretful sigh.

I made a noise of approval in my throat when he rolled to his back, taking me with him so that I was sprawled half on, half off his chest. He grabbed the wrist of my ephemeral arm and kissed each of my three fingers making warmth bloom in my chest at the gesture. A soft sigh of contentment sounded from him and when he let go of my wrist, I automatically grabbed his with my ephemeral hand and held it tight. He started stroking over my back with his free hand, the motion languid and soothing.

“I feel like I should ask you if you’re okay with... everything even though I know you are because of that link through your ephemeral hand, which was utterly glorious. Regardless, it still feels a bit rude for me to not ask if you’re feeling okay especially after my aura extended more than I intended it to. Indulge me, Kheima. Are you okay?”

“I’m so okay it’s a wonder I didn’t pass out,” I said with a little laugh. “I feel a bit tired but not exhausted or anything. Like maybe a fifteen or twenty minute nap wouldn’t be a terrible idea. My ass and hips are a bit sore but it’s a good sore. That’ll vanish in ten or fifteen minutes thanks to demon healing so it’s not something to worry about at all. I thought I’d be able to feel the egg expanding inside me but I can’t although I do have a vague sort of sense of it being there. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or relieved by that.”

“Qayin said the toy would absorb my seed each time I gave you more but that you shouldn’t accept more than four loads from me otherwise it would be something of a struggle for you to expel the toy, correct?”

I nodded and lightly traced over part of the design on Ravir’s chest with a finger, enjoying the relaxed and easy feel between us. I could get used to this sort of thing hella fast. I was pretty sure Ravir could, too.

“Not to be greedy or crass but I have to admit to assuming that I’ll be inside you more than four times over the next two days. Breeding urges aside, I feel I can safely say that neither one of us has had our fill yet. That being the case, how is that going to affect the size the toy reaches and how do we stop it from increasing the toy to a size that you can’t handle?”

I snorted softly and flicked his nipple with my fingernail, earning a tiny growl of pleasure from him. Like I was going to say no to more awesome sex with him.

“I really shouldn’t tell you this since gods need absolutely no ego boosting but Tatay says honesty with your partner is critically important and I completely agree. I really, really, liked feeling you come inside me. I’m not going to be as happy to have you pull out just before you come, which is one option. Tatay said gods can control to a degree how much they allow themselves to release. I don’t think either one of us would be happy with that option. I could do you. I’ll probably still like it way better to have you inside me, filling me, but I definitely wouldn’t say no to the chance to get my cock into you. Tatay says a lot of male gods have issues with taking cock especially if it’s a mortal cock so I’m not going to be mad or anything if you say no to that.”

“I could hold back how much I come but I agree that neither of us is going to enjoy that option much. I would love to spill my seed over you and I already had several ideas for that even before you mentioned it for purely selfish reasons. Assuming, of course, that you’re agreeable to that. Some people don’t enjoy that sort of thing and find it dirty or degrading. At some point I want you to come on me and I have several very arousing-to-me ways that I’d like you to do that.

“I’ve never allowed a mortal to fuck me. I’ve never trusted or felt any mortal was worthy enough to be allowed that privilege. But you, my Fury, are different. I have taken godly cock although it’s been quite some time since that last happened; five maybe six hundred years. I think I’d really enjoy riding your cock and then spilling over your belly and chest, coating you in my seed.”

My hole clenched pleasurably and my tired dick twitched at Ravir’s words. That did sound really fucking hot. It also sent a burst of pride through me to have him say he wanted to have my dick up his ass when he hadn’t allowed any other mortal to do that.

“I would love to do that for you,” I said with a huge grin. “By the way, why do you keep calling me your Fury? Is that like a bedroom or pet name or something? I don’t mind. I’m just curious. It’s kinda cool actually.”

Ravir’s hand paused for a fraction of a second in the sweeping motions over my back and his heartbeat sped up for half a breath. I looked up at him and saw the barest tinge of pink dust his cheeks.

“I... I seem to be massively getting ahead of myself subconsciously and making assumptions,” Ravir said. “Do you remember my saying to you earlier in the day that I might need to offer you a position as one of mine because of your understanding of vengeance and justice?”

“Yeah. I said I might if the benefits of the job were tempting enough.” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

“I wasn’t entirely teasing you when I said that. You do seem to have an innate understanding of vengeance and justice. You certainly didn’t need to offer the men of the Queen’s carrel the opportunity to exact vengeance on the Queen but you did. You understood and perhaps even felt their desire for vengeance. You could’ve taken a completely different course with Raina, one that would’ve been easier and cost you much less on a personal level, but you didn’t. You understood the other choices weren’t part of your vengeance against the Queen and what was done to you and Qayin. You understood the moral rightness, the justice, of the choice you made for Raina, an innocent in all of the court intrigue. I utterly believe that you will help greatly in shaping Raina to be the kind of Queen her mother wanted her to be and the just Queen the Pepsinae people need her to be.

“A Fury of Vengeful Justice is a Servant of mine that takes their orders directly from me and answers only to me. I don’t bestow that honour often or lightly because my requirements are very high for that position. Generally I have eleven Furies but a Fury moved on to the Great Wheel some time ago and I haven’t found anyone yet that I find suitable to fill the spot. A Fury can come from anywhere. They don’t need to be a Priest of mine and probably half of them aren’t. A Fury doesn’t need to worship me either. They carry out my orders, overseeing the most serious requests I grant except those that I need to handle myself.”

“If you’re offering me a position as one of your Furies, I’m honoured but you of all people have to know that my plate is really, really full right now. I need to resign my post in the Immortal Army so I can be Regent to Raina and while I’m not entirely sure what all that is going to entail, I’m pretty sure it’s going to eat up a lot of my time. I do know that as Regent I need to basically run the kingdom until Raina is of an age to do it herself.”

“Yes, I do understand that. But you won’t be Regent forever. Eighteen years at most. That is little more than a slow eye blink to a god, which I know you’re very aware of. I would like you to be one of my Furies but now isn’t the right time for you to take that responsibility on. I can wait. I’d like to think that declaring you one of my Furies later will be only a formality. We have a fettering between us and that is far more important a thing to me”

I blew out a breath. So much had happened in less than twenty-four hours. Given the chance though, I wouldn’t change anything. I liked having a clear path and goals ahead of me. I more or less had a pretty sweet path laid out in front of me if I wanted to take a chance and walk it. Ravir kissed the back of my ephemeral hand.

“Do not answer me now about becoming my Fury in name and deed. I will wait with relative patience until you can devote yourself to the task. The only answer I needed to know now is one you’ve already given me about allowing the fettering to complete.”

“There’s no backing out of the fettering thing. I mean, I guess you still could before it’s complete if I’m understanding things right,” I said with a tiny frown.

“We both could. Neither of us will,” Ravir said with absolute confidence in his voice.

“No, neither of us will,” I said with a smile.

“Take your nap, Kheima. You have a full day of duties and affairs to settle tomorrow and I have plans to thoroughly exhaust both of us this evening in the most debauched way you’ve ever thought possible,” Ravir said with leer as he cupped my ass.

“Don’t forget who my parents are. You’re going to have to work super hard on the debauched part if you want to surprise me in any way,” I snickered.

Ravir arched an eyebrow at me. “Did you just challenge a god?”

“Yeah, I did. Better put your thinking cap on, Ravir. You have no idea the stuff I’ve seen and heard. I expect original, quality ideas. No half-ass bullshit because you’re a god and I’m supposed to be impressed by that alone.”

Ravir laughed in delight and kissed me hard. “As my Fury wishes it. You are truly a delight.”

Gentle warmth surrounded me and I sighed in contentment at the light touch of Ravir’s godhood. It felt like early summer sunshine on my skin and instead of the very visible glow I knew it could be, it was as if golden glitter had been lightly sprinkled in the air around me, dancing and sparkling hypnotically in a soft breeze. I watched the tiny motes, Ravir’s heart beat under my ear a soothing rhythm, until my eyes drifted closed as a sense of rightness settled over me.

My day had veered dramatically off from what my plan of vengeful malice aforethought had entailed but I was honestly very happy with the outcome. I knew I’d have hardships ahead of me but for the price I’d paid and what I’d gotten in return, I firmly believed it was all more than worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the read as I had a lot of fun writing these guys. Comments are hoarded like the treasure they are and they encourage me to write more. I also have physical representations of Ravir and Kheima as ball-jointed dolls and if you'd like an actual visual of them, ask and I can throw out a link.


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